


The Legends of Ivindor : An Introduction

by aedryhgbm



Series: Project EXO [1]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Alternative Universe - Kingdom, By the time i finished this im gonna be 80, Eventual Romance, Explicit Language, F/M, Foul Language, Gen, Lowkey romance lmao - Freeform, M/M, MAMA AU, Minor Character Death, Or maybe straight up angst im not sure yet, So slow you wont see it coming, Superpowers, Surprise Ending, Violence, Why did i put these tags in the character tags, but it will come, hopefully, slight angst maybe, slowburn romance, this is gonna be long, very slowburn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2019-08-29 05:32:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 41,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16738054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aedryhgbm/pseuds/aedryhgbm
Summary: The grounds shall shake and rumble, and the skies shall collapse. The waters shall turn scarlet with death, and the trees brown with neglect. The dark ages have come, and the Kingdom of Ivindor—and soon, the world—shall suffer under the reign of the lord who turned. His demons shall roam free as they wish, killing off mortals like hogs ready for slaughter. They shall wreck havoc throughout the world, and for a period of time, they will.But fate has other plans.





	1. the beginning of a story

* * *

October 14th, 6.33 a.m.

* * *

The weather was unnervingly chilly today. Rightly so, since it was only the middle of October, and already the temperatures had plummeted to below freezing. The sky was a grey canvas, with only the barest wisps of silver across its great expanse. Tiny crystalline particles drifted along with the wind, sparkling and shiny as they caught the light of the rising sun. There was already a considerably thick sheet of it covering the earth—thick for the fact that it was only mid-October, when there shouldn't have been snow yet for a long while to come—atop the roads and the sidewalks, across fields and frozen lakes, and atop the boughs of the leaf-less trees, accentuating their barrenness and making them look like dark skeletal figures ready to snatch him up in their bony grip. He acknowledged them with nothing more than a glance and a frown. 

He'd always loved winter. He'd loved it since he was little, no more than a wee babe in his mother's arms. He could remember distinctly distant memories of his chubby arms reaching out at the falling snow, catching some in his grabby hands and seeing them pile up in his tiny palms. Then he'd upend his hands, letting the little flakes join their friends down on the ground. That was such a long time ago. Back then when he could enjoy winter innocently and freely. 

He loved winter for the litany of activities he could do. He loved having snow fights with his dad, and he always had the upper hand, especially when his dad couldn't make snowballs as fast as he could. He loved making snowmen and snow angels with his little sister. They used to challenge each other to build the biggest snowmen possible, and sometimes he'd cheat, and his snowmen would grow tall and large, taller than their dad and larger than their front door. She'd yell at him, but at the end of the day, they'd go back inside to enjoy their mom's hot chocolate. He'd have four little marshmallows floating on top of his, while she'd have seven, because she's got more of a sweet tooth than him. Sometimes when he wasn't careful, his hot chocolate would go cold within seconds, but honestly, it didn't matter whether he drunk it hot or cold. He couldn't feel it anyway. He enjoyed it simply for its taste. 

Belatedly, he realised that in the midst of his musings, a whole mound of snow had piled up on his hair. He shook it off quickly, glancing around him as he did. 

His trek to college was subdivided into three parts : the journey from his house to the shopping district, his journey through the shopping district to the bridge, and then finally his journey across the bridge and the stretch of road that would finally land him within campus grounds. At this time of the morning, the shopping district was already starting to stir with life. The shophouses were already setting up their storefronts and products, and some other people made to buy their breakfasts for the oncoming day. His journey through this part was the part he liked the least, because there were people here, and they liked to stare. They stared all the time, and once upon a time Minseok had thought they would have gotten used to it by now, that _he_ would have gotten used to it by now, but, nope. They stared as if it was their first time seeing him walk through the snow dressed in jeans and a jacket and a beanie, without having his ears fall off and his fingers turn blue. His nose didn't run copious amounts of snot like theirs did, and he didn't shiver and shake like they would. His breath didn't turn to steam in the frigid air, because his breath was already frigid air in itself, having breathed out winter wind for every other season of the year. 

He loved winter because he was winter itself. 

But he didn't love the way he was being stared at. It still got onto his nerves. 

He smiled as politely as he could to a curious shopkeeper setting up a stand outside of his shop. Even though he couldn't have meant to spend more than two minutes outside, the man had still layered on himself layers of jackets and socks and gloves, and his cheeks were already flushed in the cold. It was a stark contrast to what Minseok was wearing; a thin shirt and equally as thin jacket, the ends fraying and bitten through from how much he liked chewing on them, denim jeans and only one pair of cotton socks in his Converse shoes. These were summer clothes. But then again, Minseok couldn't feel the cold. Once he'd tried to dress himself like everyone else once, using his dad's old winter clothes because at that time he hadn't managed to ask his parents for money, and he'd basically formed a swamp in his pants by the time he sat down in class. So, like, never again. 

It was all right, honestly. They were just stares. These people had never bothered him before, about his abnormality and his oddness. Sure, he was weirdest in winter, but he was still average. He was just another average guy looking to finish university, who mostly kept to himself and did his work diligently and promptly. He wasn't all that tall nor was he that short, and he wasn't that attractive nor was he completely repulsive. He wasn't an athlete, like those uni jocks that practically lived in the gym, fucking weirdoes, nor was he a complete couch potato—he was more along the lines of fit enough that he could run a marathon in an acceptable timing, but he wouldn't want to in the first place. His favourite feature were his lips; they were quirked, and when he smiled one side was lifted up higher than the other. He always thought his smile was cute, but then that thought always led to him wondering if he was a narcissist, and then he'd always go to his mom and ask her if she thought he was cute. She'd then tell him he was more beautiful than any winter night, and that would make him beam, because he knew she thought winter nights were the absolute best in the world.

His eyes were feline-like, and his sister likened them to that of the weirdo community cat that came around sometimes to simply lavish in the attention of the residence. They said the eyes were the window to the soul, but he always thought his eyes weren't that full of expression—they looked rather empty in his opinion, like if anyone were to look into them they'd see that the lights were on but no one was home. He was always more expressive using his mouth, and how he puffed his cheeks, and how drawn together his eyebrows were.

They said that eyes were the window to the soul, and what Minseok saw now were that these souls were wondering if he had a loose screw somewhere in his head. A couple times he saw as he quickly walked through the streets several people (adults mostly, those who don't frequently come across him on a daily basis) looking as if they wanted to offer him their jackets, giving him a once-over, then looking away. He only averted his eyes, quickening his pace so that he could escape the stares. 

The stares were fine, but it didn't mean that he liked them. If anything they just served to push him away from the rest of humanity. 

He dusted off the small mound of snow on his shoulders, his gloves crinkling under the layer of frost that had spread over them. 

The bridge was built over an underground road, and it stretched over a whole six lanes. There were two sets of railings flanking the bridge, and Minseok had never known the true purpose of the lower ones. He'd always thought those were for children crossing the bridge, but then after that he seemed to struggle finding a reason why children would ever need to use this bridge in particular. Alone or not. But whatever, he wasn't the one who designed the bridge. If he did he would have definitely made it prettier, added in some pretty designs to the railings and the floor, like murals maybe. He imagined he would've probably used winter themes, like prancing reindeer and pretty Christmas trees and giant snowflakes. Or maybe he would try to recreate a blizzard. Or, the total opposite. Maybe he'd design a fiery phoenix made of ice, and a fire-breathing dragon alongside it. A thunderstorm raging at its strongest, the flashes of lightning glinting dangerously from his ice. He paused in his musings.

Not that he was a designer anyway. Not that he was even studying to become a designer or anything. Still, he certainly wouldn't have stuck to boring, dull gravel. He would've used something more colourful, like stained glass maybe, fortified by steel carvings under the panes. It was so bleak walking across the bridge. The flowers that usually decorated the sides had fallen victim to the early winter ages ago, and in their place were the skeletons of the once bright shrubs that had been planted in their rustic red pots.

Everything was frozen here on this bridge. The frozen railing slowly swirled with delicate images as Minseok trailed a finger across its surface. He caught sight of a sliver of ice flake off the railing and then whirling high up in the air, dancing a dance only he was privy to, and abruptly he dropped his hand to his side. Sometimes he forgot he could do things like that. He always reminded himself to keep his hands to himself, lest people saw what they weren't meant to. Even though there wasn't anyone else on the bridge but him at the moment. But he still had to be careful. If he wasn't careful he might accidentally lose control of himself again, and he might hurt more people than the last time. He was lucky the last time was in the privacy of his own home, and he was lucky his sister hadn't been severely injured, but the memory prevailed even as the years passed. 

He sucked in a breath through his teeth when his mind flashed him images of blood crystallising in the palms of his hands. It was only a tiny splatter of blood, because the cut itself was tiny, but the regret was humongous. The crying was the worst part. 

It's why he wore gloves all the time. He tugged on them now, pulling them higher up his wrists, though they didn't even threaten to fall off anytime soon. With his gloves on, he could at least remember the reason why they were there, and what it was they were to prevent him from doing. But sometimes he forgot anyway, because they were there all the time they were practically a second skin. And they were often covered with a layer of frost; but unless people were looking, they wouldn't know it was there. 

He meant it when he said he was winter itself. He was the physical embodiment of it, because he had frozen rivers of ice as his blood and his veins were the delicate swirls and patterns of the many snowflakes that drifted down from above. His breath was the winter cold, and his fingers were icicles, and anyone who touched him would feel not skin, but planes of ice, frozen rock hidden under a veneer of frost. They would marvel at the coldness of his skin, and then they would scream when they saw their fingertips turn blue. 

Hence, the gloves. Hence, the jacket. Hence, the clothes that covered up all the skin he needed to cover up. It was fine as long as there was a barrier between his skin and theirs. Skin on skin contact was impossible for someone like him, but it didn't matter to him, honestly. Who wanted to hold his hand in the first place? The only one who could touch him was his mother. 

It was his mother who gave him powers in the first place. She'd been delighted when she found out. He'd been six at the time, and there had been a trail of frost up her arm that started from the tips of his fingers when he tapped her wrist for attention, and she had beamed as brightly as the full moon on a dark winter night while he came close to tears because he just scared himself shitless. 

She'd had reassured him that what he had was a gift, something reserved only for special people like him, and he'd gloated over that when he found that his sister hadn't inherited the same powers. She'd told him there was going to be a special time for him in the future, when he'd be able to use his powers as they were meant to be used. He didn't know what she meant by that. He still didn't know. 

When he was younger he'd revelled in the fact that he was going to be a superhero, because that was obviously what she meant. 'To use his powers as they were meant to be used', what else did she mean other than he would be a hero one day? Kids love heroes. They loved the idea of being a saviour to a city, to a country; they loved the idea of the fame and the glory. But as he grew older, and the more he thought about it, Minseok realised being a hero was a terrifying thing. It wasn't all about the fame and the glory. Those came after. What came before was the responsibility, the compassion, the capacity and the ability to save innocent souls without losing his own life in the process. It was having close ones to you constantly in danger, at risk of being taken hostage by enemies, by villains to be used as leverage, vulnerable to the threat of death over and over again. Of course, this was Seoul, in South Korea, and there weren't any supervillains or mad scientists threatening to take over the country over other day. But his powers were here for a reason. The absence of any foe for him to take down and get it all over and done with was wearing on him, honestly. 

He was terrified. He didn't know how Captain America could cope with all this, how Iron Man could even continue living his life the way he did when there were so many threats, so many risks; Minseok didn't know how he would survive because he hadn't even started his life as a superhero and yet he could already feel the stress leeching away all his years. 

This was terrible. It was all terrible. He'd make a terrible superhero, he thought. He would hesitate at every dire moment, and he'd second-guess himself more than he'd actually act, and the lives he'd lose would outweigh all the lives he'd actually save. He wished his mom would talk to him more about this. But everytime he brought up the topic, she'd deflect it, and steer it into something she'd rather talk about. He didn't understand. She'd seemed so excited at the discovery of her son's power, but as the years went by and the more he asked about it, the more tightly clamped her mouth became, and the look on her face began to resemble his more and more, till they sometimes mirrored twin looks of terror whenever they both thought about it at the same time. Maybe she too realised the danger that would come in the future. 

And then when a sudden, terrible pain overcame him, bursting out from his head and then spreading all over his body, to the tips of his fingers and down towards his toes, making his knees buckle and a choked gasp to leave his lips, he thought to himself, maybe the time has come. 

 

 

He couldn't have blacked out that long, but when he came to, the sky looked darker than it had been before he'd went unconscious, looking as though it was overcast though the clouds that hung up there were thin and wispy. And the snow hadn't piled up that high yet—it was barely considered a pile, and so he concluded he was only out for a mere few minutes. But it was a few minutes too long, because in the next second he realised quickly two things. One; a massive claw of jagged ice spiralling out from the metal railing above his head, curving down to point their sharp points at his face, and as soon as he realised this he tore his gloved hand off the baluster as if it burned him, and it may as well have, because he felt as though the world was crashing down upon him, feeling his soul be condemned to an eternity of isolation and loneliness when he saw who stood at the end of the bridge. 

Two; the group of people that stood gawking and gaping at him, stuck at the mouth of the bridge as though they were too afraid to come closer to him. They probably were, seeing the thing he'd just created. He glanced at the shards of ice on the railing as he slowly rose to his feet, then turning his shaking gaze back onto the crowd that had assembled. _Fuck_ , that was Miyoung over there with her friends, _fuck_ , people have taken out their phones, _fuck_ , his face was in full view. 

He raised his hand in a bid to convince them to lower their phones, to _stop fucking recording holy shit_ , and his other hand he raised to cover his face, but the crowd reacted instantaneously. They screamed, and backed up away from the mouth of the bridge, backed up from Minseok though he stood far from them near the centre of the bridge, as though he was a monster, as though he were anything less than a human, and oh this fucking hurt more than anything else in the world. 

He backed up himself, a couple of paces, and as he did he stepped out from under the shadow of the ice, into view of the road below. 

Below was worse. 

He glanced to the side to see that the cars have stopped, that people have fucking come out of their vehicles to gawk at the boy who created all that ice, gawk at _him_ , because obviously it was him, who else could it be, it's the boy with frost spreading over his hands and his shoulders and around his neck, the one who had the snow fall increasingly harder around him, the one unaffected by it all—

Pain overtook him again, in his gut this time, and he doubled over in agony. The crowd by the mouth of the bridge gasped; some screeched in fear, and they backed up even more as he wrapped his arms around himself, sinking down to his knees. He knelt there, hunched over, and gasping and gritting his teeth against the pain that flared mercilessly throughout his body. With great effort, he raised his eyes to the crowd, only to see them simply recording his misfortune, choosing to snap pictures of the ice beside him rather than actually step forward to help him. 

Why would they? He was a monster. 

He was no hero. 

So with a grunt, bracing himself against the pain, he shot off the ground, heading the other way. He tore down the rest of the bridge, racing down the streets away from campus grounds, away, away, away from the people who'd always thought he was weird, thought he was crazy, and now thought he was a monster. He didn't look back, not once, didn't even stop to think. 

It was a pity he didn't, though. He would've seen the other boy with the same pain in his eyes, who'd had gritted his own teeth and clutched at his stomach the same way Minseok had to assuage the raging pain in his gut as he fought to stay inconspicuous in the crowd.

* * *

October 14th, 3.27 p.m.

* * *

When he finally decided to stop running, he found himself stumbling into an empty park. There was a thin bed of snow covering the barren expanse, and the lake in the far corner was frozen. There was a grove of skeletal trees by the left, and the pathways were slicked with ice. Minseok huffed and panted and wheezed—he took back what he said about being able to run a marathon. He used the back of his arm to push down the mask he'd stolen so that he could breathe better. It was amazing how fast videos could spread on the Internet—he'd seen vaguely but very obviously a video of him hunched over in pain on the bridge on someone's Instagram page when he'd passed behind them. It was completely fucking up his escape plan. If only people could just mind their own business. So he could shoot ice out of his hands. Haven't they heard? That was the trend now. 

He'd scurried away with his tail between his legs before anyone could recognize him, then snatched a mask from an open store after shooting a sheet of ice at the security camera. What a hero he was. Mom must be out of her mind. 

He sat down on the empty pathway for a moment, just to catch his breath. He was being pulled somewhere, he was aware. But to where he wasn't all that sure yet. Along the way while he was running, it soon felt like there was a hook behind his navel, and he was being pulled by some incessant invisible fisherman miles away. And not only was it pulling him somewhere, quite annoyingly in his opinion, it _hurt_  too, as if the initial burst of pain in the morning wasn't enough. It grew steadily and steadily over the hours, like a rash, but what got to him was the fact that it was a rash he couldn't even hope to scratch. All he could do was follow where it pulled him to. He didn't even know which direction he was running, because all the signs he'd passed meant jack shit to him, and he was too afraid of pulling out his phone in case he froze it. That would be a nightmare. 

Not that he could even physically pull his phone out at this point. His hands were completely encased in ice, jagged blocks that dragged his arms down and made running for very long impossible, because what the fuck they were heavy. He hung his head between his drawn-up knees, took in a deep breath, then smashed his hands onto the concrete below. A resounding thud echoed throughout the park, though the falling snow around him muffled the sound a bit, but other than that, nothing happened. Minseok grunted as his arms jolted, but didn't waste time to inspect the damage. The blocks of ice around his hands didn't even crack, didn't even chip at the sides—if Minseok scrutinized closely, he would see instead the concrete between his feet sporting hairline fractures under the impact of his hands. 

He sighed, rising to his feet. There was a slight breeze drifting through the falling snow, ruffling through his frosty hair. He took a deep inhale, holding it in for a while. 

Then he screamed.

How was he supposed to be a superhero when the barest of frustration would topple his walls, when stress would take him out faster and more efficiently than any villain would? He couldn't even control his powers; how could he even hope to save people? When his ice was nothing more than a nuisance, than a reminder of how much alienated he was, how he was so alone. Winter was a bleak time, and it was filled with misery and isolation, and the cold only served to hurt, and he was the embodiment of it. 

However, he realised, as the echoes of his scream rang throughout the empty park, an odd prickly feeling down below his elbows. He looked down, and saw the blocks of ice receding back into his flesh, slowly but surely, till he skin was free and exposed again. He curled his fingers, finding the movement stiff, but there all the same. 

He sighed once more, looking forward. Well, at least one part of his problem had backed off. At least he could walk easier now. The weight had been pulling at his shoulders, and the strain was wearing him down more than the exhaustion. He crossed the field, overlooking the pathways completely, because the pull was leading him across the field. 

He totally did not notice the monsters until it was too late. 

All he did notice was a strange rumbling sound, but for the life of him he didn't know why he didn't think to turn around to check. There hadn't been anyone out for hours, because the cold had kept them all inside, and so he'd thought faintly that the noise had been from something else. He should've checked, really. Then he would've been able to protect his back from the swipe that tore open his flesh. 

Claws sunk into his back, raking through skin and flesh, and the sheer force sent him flying across the ground, through the snow. He choked out a scream, rolling around onto his front, and when he turned his head up all he could comprehend were dark, four-legged creatures closing in on him. Frantically, he pushed himself off, and he could _feel_ his blood running down his sides when he moved, but now wasn't the time to care. Now was the time to run away, and fuck the pull, he'd rather endure feeling as if his insides were being run though a grinder than ever stop to let these things devour him. 

But these things were _fast_ , holy shit. He'd barely even taken three steps before he was pounced on, and this time he managed to roll onto his back to protect himself from his front. The stinging pain at his back was a faint presence at the back of his mind, because all he could focus on was the sight above him. 

It was a monstrous beast, predatory and evil. Its skull was huge, and its slitted eyes were placed high on the arch of its nose. Its mouth was like a bear trap, stuck in a permanent smile that displayed yellow teeth as sharp and as large as kitchen knives. It was barrel-chested, and its legs were rather stout, bow-shaped, but its feet were the feet of a dragon's, scaly and clawed, and he was only aware of this because it pricked him in the left forearm. Minseok gasped, and the beast snarled, the noise rumbling from deep within its chest, and then it dove down to clamp its maw around his shoulder. 

Minseok screamed. It sounded terrible even to his own ears. It was a sound of nails raking against glass, of bones shattering to dust, of agony like no other. 

But despite that, he found himself encasing his arm with a thick blade of ice, which he then used to stab through the beast's thick neck. Pulling his arm free, black blood splattered all over him, over his face and soaking through his clothes. 

With a fright, he realised the beast hadn't let go of his shoulder, and he started kicking at it with a panic when he saw the other beasts around him. It fell to his side with a loud thump just as the others jumped at him. The first beast he kicked away, slamming the sole of his foot into its nose, and as it staggered away slightly he spun around on his bloodied back to drive another blade into the neck of another beast. It made a sickening sound as it died, and thick, viscous saliva, green and pungent, dripped onto his cheek as it hung above him. 

It burned. Minseok had never known what being burnt felt like, but this burned him, and it wasn't a good feeling. He swiped at the saliva, but only managed to smear it more, and he froze it over as he broke the blade inside the beast's neck, turning to engage the third one. 

This one he made a thick bar of ice to wedge between its maw, but he was clawed at his chest in return. It wasn't as deep as the one on his back, but it still drew blood, and it stung with a pain he had never felt before. He screamed through gritted teeth as he wrestled with the beast, shoving it away with the bar stuck between its jaws, and quickly he formed another blade and swung at its neck. It formed a shallow cut, severing no major veins, securing him no victory, but before he could make another move he saw something behind the beasts, in the far distance, and he froze. 

A sea of water, hanging suspended in mid-air. The boy bringing his arm downwards, surging the whole mass towards Minseok and the beasts. 

Frantically, he brought up a dome around his body, and as he curled up under it the body of water slammed into the beasts above him with a thunderous noise. It seemed never-ending, the rush of water over the dome protecting Minseok. But when it did, there was nothing but silence. 


	2. red sun rising

* * *

October 14th, 3.27 a.m.

* * *

 

He was dreaming again. 

It wasn't the fact that he was dreaming that perturbed him, really. Everyone dreamed; everybody had dreams, there was nothing strange about that. It was the fact that he was dreaming the same dream again. And when he said 'again', he didn't mean he'd dreamt this dream once before. Not even twice before. He meant he'd dreamed this same dream hundreds of times. Over and over and over again over the course of the year, every time night fell and he succumbed to slumber. It distressed him past the point of caring anymore, but usually when he'd been pushed into the void of indifference and apathy, it really just meant he'd cared too much and searched too much and too long for answers that would not reveal themselves that he'd just, finally, chosen to wait. And when he waited, the answer always revealed itself. Though he didn't realise it this time. This time the answer took its time to unfurl fully. And when he finally realised it, he would realise it's all over.

He'd seen this dream so much, lived through it so much that he could recite what they did in his moments of waking, during the day when dreams usually slipped from one's grasp like sand through fingers so that they could not remember much of it, so much that he could write a whole essay about the emotions playing on each person's face and hold debates with himself about why they did what they did, what thoughts probably ran through their mind every time they moved, they acted, they destroyed. 

The dream made no sense, and yet it made complete sense to him at the same time. He didn't question why that one boy was cursed to have fire bursting from his hands when he so obviously despised it, didn't question why the other one was blessed with the ability to disappear because he knew it was something he loved doing so much, didn't raise an eyebrow when the other one's power came late beyond measure, but right on time anyway. He didn't understand yet understood how the one boy who destroyed so carelessly could love so fondly and strongly it would come to destroy him in return, and he understood yet didn't understand why that other one would willingly throw his life away so thoughtlessly. He didn't understand yet he did at the same time why every time he dreamt the dream he'd always wish and pray that the end would be different, that they would all stay standing, that fate wasn't such a cruel bitch and force him to watch it come to life and that death wasn't so unfeeling and tear away the one who didn't deserve it most. He understood and knew yet didn't anyway why he'd be crying so much tears, why he'd kneel there crying and screaming his bloody heart out into the broken sky as he stared down at the blood, _so much blood_ , as he tried to force it back into the body, the body that's long gone and limp and cold—

It was a nightmare. Nightmares cause people to lurch out of bed with a cold sweat, heart hammering, lungs heaving, head throbbing. It was a nightmare that wouldn't leave, and frankly, he was getting tired of it. He was getting tired of snapping awake in the middle of the night with tears soaking his cheeks and staining the pillow, tired of having his heart be torn to shreds over and over and over again every time he watched the end, tired of searching for answers that would never reveal themselves.

But, as all nightmares were, it played on anyways, regardless of the fact that it traumatized him beyond reparation. 

It started out simple. Twelve boys, under one sky. Twelve heroes, on different grounds. Twelve souls, binded together by an unlikely thread. They were young, and they were innocent, and they were naïve. And the world seemed so dark and frightful for tiny little boys like them. But what were they to do except forge on? It was expected of them. And so they did. 

He was shown nothing else except that their journey was harsh, and that the sun was unforgiving above them, and that the moon was unkind to their plight. Damnation was what they were given, but damnation was all there was left. The people they met were terrible, each to their own, and the monsters, even more so. But the worst of them would be the man they were there for in the first place. The man sitting in his broken throne of gold and silver, in his broken castle under the dying tree, wearing a bloody crown stained by sins. He bared his teeth, and so they bared their own. He had behind him legions and armies of twisted men and women and monsters corrupted and vile, but they had with them rage and contempt and spite and hate and love, and against all odds they managed to carve their way up to him, and against all the odds one of them was lost. His loss was the key to their victory, but what was victory when they all lost something so much more? What did it mean to win when it felt like they've just lost everything that ever mattered?

What was the point of him being there if he could not prevent that from happening? 

But his nightmare played out like it did all the time, every time, and once the body fell and once the sky above them broke apart, he would find himself screaming. And screaming and screaming and screaming till he knew nothing else and felt nothing else but loss and the blood under his hands. And then he would wake up. 

 

 

And so he did, like every other time he dreamt the nightmare.

He shot up in bed, panting, sobbing, cursing the nightmare because what the fuck he can't get a single damn break in his life. He wiped angrily at his eyes, glancing to his right to see if he'd awoken his cousin. Sometimes he did that. Sometimes, when he'd had a terrible day or when he was more tired than usual, the screaming would escape the realm of his subconscious out to his physical body. Wei Hao had described them as nails scratching forcefully against porcelain, had said the scream sounded terribly loud, too loud and too massive for someone with a neck so thin, had wondered aloud whether Luhan was experiencing being burned alive. Maybe he was. Or not. That wasn't for his cousin to know. 

Thankfully, he hadn't screamed this time. Wei Hao remained sleeping like a log under his covers, snoring lightly. Luhan wondered what kind of dreams visited him. What kind of nightmares plagued him. Surely they wouldn't be anywhere near as terrible as his. He was lucky, Luhan thought. Foresight was a burden. 

His nightmare was more of a vision. A premonition. A warning come to tell him of the future. He was suspicious of this train of thought after the first two weeks, because surely normal dreams weren't recurring. The story of Alice was a fiction, and Wonderland was a fantasy created by the human mind. This was no fantasy, and this was no fiction. He wasn't Alice, and Wonderland was not meant for people like him. Wonderland was a playground for children when compared to the world he was shown. The Red Queen was pathetically weak when standing before the man on the broken throne. And the Jabberwocky would soon rather cut off its own head than have itself face the monsters that ran amok in the land. 

But he was no Alice, and Alice wasn't Luhan either. Where Alice played a figurehead of war, merely champion of the White Queen, Luhan's role ran deeper, more intricately woven in the threads of history and present and future. Where death seemed not a threat to either Alice or her friends, because Alice was a character in a children's book and children don't do the concept of death, death was all Luhan's life was going to be once he stepped on that land. Death was all his brothers' lives were going to be once they meet. Death was all one of them will ever know. 

The slaying of the Jabberwocky was the means to an end. But there was no end in Luhan's story. There was only pain, and tears, and death, and he didn't know how to protect his brothers from all of that. There was no way to protect any of them from what they were to go through, from the cruelty of life, and if he did it would only be through lies. But lies and any fabrication of truth would only get him so far, and everything that was hidden will always be brought to the surface sooner or later. There was no end to the pain that was his life. 

He wondered what his mother would've told him in a time like this. Then he shook his head. He didn't even know what her voice sounded like. 

As time passed and the visions grew in his mind like an infectious plague, the only question that really mattered was _when?_  When would they be forced to step onto that land? When would they meet? When would be the time to fight? When would be the time to kill? All he had were these visions, but they didn't tell him anything he wanted to know, only everything he didn't. They looked young in the dream, and Luhan knew he looked almost the same in there and out here, but he also knew what he looked like right now at twenty-two he also looked like at sixteen. And he'd never seen any of the others in the vision in the flesh before, so it was hard to judge the time that had passed from now and then. After so long of the vision, he wondered if it was going to come anytime soon at all. Maybe he would be forced to host the vision for the next five years. He wouldn't know. He'll never have all the answers. 

But there was a growing bud of anxiety in his chest. Dread filled his veins as fast as the blood that flowed through it. And suddenly he wondered, what if it happened today? 

Was he ready for that? No. He never was. He never will be. But when is anyone really prepared for anything? 

He certainly wasn't prepared for when he found out he had powers. For someone who'd dreamt the same dream for almost an entire year, one would think it would be a shock if he turned out to not have powers at all. But Luhan was a weird one, and so he found himself surprised still at discovering his own. 

It was by mistake, and by a stroke of luck he had been completely alone when it happened. It happened... yesterday. For some reason unknown to even he, he hadn't thought to use his powers. Then that led to the question of whether it was possible for him to have powers in the first place, despite everything he was shown. Then that led to the question of why he hadn't tried earlier. He found no concrete answer to that. 

So Luhan had tried anyway. Wei Hao had been out for basketball practice, and in the silence of his bedroom Luhan had paused to survey all the contents within. He had stared at the small container of pencils on the study table between his and Wei Hao's beds, and he just about scared himself shitless when the container floated up in the air for all of two seconds before it crashed back down again. But the damage was done, and Luhan had seen what he could do. And there was nothing else he could think to do at the moment except to scream. And so he screamed. 

But he was pathetically weak, he soon found. That little container of pencils was the heaviest thing he could lift yesterday. Today it broadened to him being able to drag out the chair from under the desk, but it wasn't as if it was anything even remotely heavy.

He wanted to try again now, but realised when he made to swing his legs over the side of the bed that he moved too fast, and his body was seized with pain. He cursed quietly, hand shooting up to clutch his head. He was so fucking tired with the vision. As if heartbreak wasn't enough, he had to deal with physical pain once he woke up too. It was an aching sort of pain, from phantom wounds he never yet received, a throbbing pain in the scars he would only discover later. It was a burning pain in his chest, where his heart lay, especially if he let his mind wander anywhere close to the end, where it felt like an invisible hand would squeeze the muscle in a grip too tight and harsh. It was a striking pain in his head, that made him lock up and tense uncomfortably, and which made his jaw and neck spasm uncontrollably. It was a paralyzing pain in his limbs, that made it feel as if molten metal was being seared up and down his bones, as if his muscles were being ripped apart from each other. He was so fucking tired of this vision.

Looking up from the floor, he rested a cautious gaze onto the chair. He blinked, focusing hard, then tilted his head. The chair slid out from under the table, out further till it touched the opposite wall. He sighed. 

Progress. He was making progress at least. It slid out faster this time. He tried lifting it now, but only just managed to make it wobble the slightest bit. 

It was still progress. 

It was useless going back to sleep now, he thought, glancing at the clock through the darkness of the night. The vision-dream-nightmare woke him up at all odd hours of the night, when the moon still hung high in the sky, and the following pain would strip him of any drowsiness so that falling back asleep was pointless. This would then leave him cranky and moody for the rest of the day, and so which was to say he was cranky and moody every day for the past year. He hated it, but at this point of time he'd gotten used to it. 

That was such a sad thing to say. 

He tried to open the door without touching it, and he had to mime opening the door by clawing at the open air with his fingers, but he managed after a while. Any progress was good progress, he told himself. He walked down the stairs in the dark, and then into the kitchen, where he made himself a cup of coffee, still in the dark. He contemplated floating the mug through the air onto the table in the living room, but then decided quickly he didn't want to clean up such a mess so early in the morning. 

Reclining on the couch as he took his first sip, his mind started wandering. It was going to happen soon. Whatever... this was. This was less of premonition, but more of some inate, primal knowledge. It was the dread solidifying deep in his gut, the prickly feeling along his arms that made him want to move, do something, anything. It was the way his eyes started darting everywhere, because suddenly everything seemed threatening, overwhelming. 

He closed his eyes, breathing deeply. If he concentrated, he found he could... _feel_... his cousins and auntie and uncle's presences?... auras as they slept in their rooms. They looked to him like flickering waves of matter, or... not matter. It was like how the air looked on an extremely hot day, waves and ripples in the open space, only more opaque and solid. More defined. In sleep, they seemed so tranquil and peaceful, like the barest ripples on water. They were the only auras he could feel. He opened his eyes. 

Was this part of his powers too? His mind flitted to and from thought to thought, ideas and plans taking form in every corner of his mind. He had to, he had to plan and think if he even wanted to snag a chance of getting him and his brothers back home alive. He had to, because he had the burden of this foresight. He had to, because he cared too much for people he didn't know. 

If he concentrated enough, he could continue flaring his... ah, what to call them? Aura sensors? Sensors. If he concentrated enough, he could continue flaring his sensors till it became more of a subconscious act, so he could tuck that in a pocket while he attended to other matters. Of his two abilities at the current moment (maybe he'll discover more, he didn't know the extent of the powers neither he nor the others had), his aura sensing was easier, and so he only thought it logical to practice that first. Perhaps once he's done it enough, it would really become a subconscious act, something as natural to him as breathing was. 

His coffee sat untouched on the table in front of him for the next hour or so. In the silence of the night, his sensors were able to spread far, though not as far as his thoughts went, but progress was still progress no matter how small. He could even detect now the fluttering aura of the frail old lady that lived across the street. Her aura was so feeble, like a candle on the verge of going out. There was a kid two houses over, up playing a video game, and he only knew this because his aura flared angrily occasionally, and when it flared it peeked into his range of detection. What other explanation would there be other than him getting killed at his game? Luhan wished he could be as carefree as that kid was. He'd certainly appreciate being in his position right now, where his only problems would probably be worrying about staying up during class the following morning. It's a school day, holy shit, kid, Luhan thought, shaking his head. 

Instead, what he had to worry about was death—his probable death, his brothers' probable deaths, and the death of the man on the throne that he had to ensure would happen. He had to worry about getting strong in time, because looking at his progress right now there was no way he would be getting anywhere strong enough to hurt, let alone kill. He had to worry about making sure the others were strong enough as well, because while they were together Luhan could at least ensure no harm could befall them without him doing anything about it first, but once they were on the field fighting fights way out of their depth it was going to be every man for himself. It was all about survival of the fittest. It was all about the matter of kill or be killed. 

The he wondered whether it was too much of him to expect them to even entertain the idea of killing as readily as him. 

Then he wondered if he was broken somewhere inside to be able to think of killing and death as casually as he was doing.

It was too much to think about. He reached for his mug, feeling rather than seeing it settle in his hands, and proceeded to take a rather large gulp. Then he grimaced, because it had gone cold. 

As he leaned forward to place the mug back onto the table, he noticed something outside of his house that snagged his complete attention. There were five new auras. Very peculiar auras. Over the past hour since he'd sat down here, there had been the occasional lonesome souls that wandered the streets in the dead of night, but Luhan had given them the barest of acknowledgements. There wasn't anything special about them. 

But what really got to him about these five new auras, what really perplexed him beyond  _belief_ , beyond the boundaries of understanding, was that they had literally popped up out of nowhere. Like, one moment they weren't there. Then in the next second, they were.

And they were right in front of his house. That... can't be good. 

His heart lurched up his throat when they started moving towards the front door. He stayed frozen where he was, but his mind raced, taking stock of the situation. Here he was, all alone. Five presences outside, two distictly human, three distinctly animal, all distinctly corrupted and vile and repulsive. His family sleeping upstairs. Fuck. 

_Fuck._

He stood up, as quietly as he could, feeling awfully aware of the animal presences outside there. Gosh, what the fuck _are_  they? They resembled nothing he ever knew. The stray cats that he'd sensed roaming the streets outside his home had seemed to him so insignificant, not even anything remotely threatening, and they passed by like a faint breeze, and just as harmless. These animals appeared like a whirlwind, devastating in their intentions and downright catastrophic on their worst scale. They brought with them a part of damnation.

And they reeked. 

They were right in front of the door now. Luhan moved as well, stepping in line with the door, legs braced apart and hands fisted. His mind raced. He was useless in a fight now, weak as he was with his inexperience, but damn him if he didn't try. He'd seen what he can do. He knew of the disaster he can wrought all by himself. He'd seen all the devastation, all the dead. What were these two men and their monsters? 

Was the door locked? he thought, his brows scrunching on his forehead as he saw a tendril, a limb reach out from one of the human auras towards the door knob. He held out a hand just in case, ready to brace against the door if it opened. 

Through the darkness, he saw the knob jolt, the man unable to open it from outside. But before Luhan could even let himself breathe in this brief respite, there was a bright shimmering in the air, _inside_  his _fucking_  house, right in front of the front door. Luhan clenched his jaw to prevent himself from screaming. The shimmering turned into a dark blue, so dark it was indiscernible in the night, and just as quickly the glowing faded away, and as it did the space in the air appeared solid and opaque. Then it fell away into nothing, and literally immediately, chaos struck. 

A metal claw burst out through the doorway, and Luhan snapped a hand in front of his neck, palm facing outward. The claw struck an invisible barrier, but before it could fall Luhan grasped it tight, and with a strength he didn't know he possessed, he yanked at it. The chain attached to the claw went taut, but without much resistance he managed to pull the man holding the chain through the door. 

(... should he have just closed the door in the first place? No, he reasoned. They'd just open another one. Might as well just kill them now. How would he even close the door? He didn't know how.)

The body that sailed through the portal was one Luhan was expecting, but yet didn't at the same time. He was reminiscent of the twisted men he'd seen in his vision; big and bulky, tall and intimidating. He wore a cloak, mottled grey and brown, and which fluttered open at his front as he was pulled through. Luhan saw the belts and garters holding in place countless scabbards and sheaths, and—what the fuck was that an axe. A small axe but it was still an axe. What the fuck—and he thought to himself, _holy fuck_. 

The man rolled as he hit the floor, up into his feet barely a couple feet in front of Luhan himself, swinging a fist at his face. Luhan reciprocated with a fist of his own, wrapped up in translucent folds of energy, and when their fists collided there was a blast that rattled the windowpanes in the house and which shook the tables and chairs all around. Luhan grunted. 

The man moved with a speed that belied his size, and he feinted a jab to Luhan's head before dropping to the floor, swinging his leg out to swipe the boy onto the floor. Luhan barely had time to shield himself, and he skidded slightly across the floor from the force. He braced himself again, then moved to deliver a punch downwards at the man still on the ground. But the man looked up, and Luhan saw a flash of white through his hood, and the next thing he knew there was a crater in his uncle's hardwood floor. He sucked in a deep, panicked breath, and looked up to see the man standing before the open portal. 

All that had transpired within five measly seconds, and five measly seconds were what it took for Luhan to feel the oncoming stress. Fuck, he's gonna go gray before he reached his thirties, this is terrible. 

And in the sixth second, it all went fucking worse. He caught sight of sharp teeth like kitchen knives, claws as long as his forearm, and the pungent smell that only grew more pungent with the absence of a barrier. He had to staunch his gag, and then he had to stop his heart attack when he heard the sound of a door opening from above. 

"Wei Hao? De—...De Yi?" He heard his auntie call drowsily, voice caught in her throat, presumably from the terrible stench. His heart stopped, when the men and their monsters looked upwards at the landing too. "Luhan?" 

There was a growl, and Luhan's eyes snapped towards the front. A large shadowy figure—a beast made to leap up the staircase, but he acted quicker, reaching his arm out to swat the beast back. But perhaps his panic had him misjudging his strength, because instead of simply swatting the beast down back onto the ground, he accidentally launched the beast straight into the opposite wall, where there was now a crater to match the one Luhan had made on the floor. 

"What's going on down there!?" His auntie yelled. 

"Go inside!" Luhan yelled back. " _Please!_ " 

But the noise he had made only attracted his cousins and his uncle to step out as well, and Luhan could only curse and try vehemently to stop himself from bawling his eyes out. Now was _not_  the time to cry. 

As his family congregated upstairs, Luhan threw himself at the intruders. He aimed a punch at the man, fist wrapped up in folds of energy again, but there was a flickering in the darkness, and the man disappeared from right in front of his face. He was momentarily stunned, and in that split second his fist was caught in another. His eyes refocused to look up at the second man that had been behind the first, and he couldn't move in time to block the man's other fist from colliding into his side. The air was knocked out of his lungs, making him double over in pain, and then he was knocked onto the ground. He collapsed in a corner of the wall, wheezing, and gagging, because he was now in closer fucking proximity to the beasts and their rotting smell. 

"Luhan!?" He heard, and with a panicked jolt, he looked up to see Wei Hao halfway down the stairs. His face had been contorted into a disgusted grimace at the putrid smell, but once he saw the scene in the foyer, his eyes went wide, and his face went pale, and when he looked into Luhan's eyes it was as if the latter was looking back into all his nightmares again.

Chaos ensued _again_. The first man motioned for the beasts to move, and two of them did, bounding up the stairs. Wei Hao screamed, which made De Yi scream, which made their parents yelp and fumble about trying to gather their children to them, and which made Luhan scream. He shot his hand out, slamming a beast into the wall, but the other one merely leapt over the crumpled body up to the landing. Luhan yelled out for his family, but amidst the screaming above, he wasn't even sure they could hear him. He was struck in the face with a fist, and when he blinked bleary eyes above again he found himself face-to-face with the third beast. It snarled at him warningly, teeth bared, and a glob of green saliva dripped onto his clothed chest. It burned away at the cloth, and it burned when it touched his skin. 

But what the fuck. Ask him if he gives a motherfuck?

He pushed the beast away, again with an unexpected bout of strength, and it crashed into the front door. He pushed himself to his feet, shoving the man away and sprinting towards the door, but he barely managed to climb up halfway when a body materialised in front of him. He stopped before he could collide with the man, but obviously the man didn't share the same sentiments about personal space because he slammed himself into Luhan, sending them both sprawling down the stairs. 

Luhan growled in rage, then kicked the man square in the chest, sending him crashing into the wall and forming another large crater. He rolled onto his feet, then instinctively blocked a blow from the second man with his forearm. It didn't hurt for some reason, but Luhna didn't even think to dwell on it. He blocked another blow, then went to punch the man himself. His fist connected with the man's gut, and the sheer force sent the man flying into the living room. Luhan spun on his heel, then raised a palm over his face, procuring a shield to block the first man's downward strike of his sword. It would have hit him in the shoulder with the flat of the blade, and Luhan realised something in that instance. They weren't here to kill him. They were here to... capture him?

They grappled, after Luhan managed to yank the sword out of the man's hands, and now they fought with fists. Luhan suffered more, but he wasn't going down anytime soon, so he fought to stand his ground. He saw a flash of white through the hood, scars where the mouth was supposed to be. He was aware of the two beasts remaining, one by the front door and another one the stairs, watching as Luhan got beat down over and over again. And the other man was only beginning to get up from the wreckage of the living room. Then Luhan thought with a giant flash of alarm, _the other beast_ —

A body fell from the second floor over the railing. It fell with a wet splat, and both Luhan and the man ceased their fight to turn their attention on the sudden interference. And Luhan choked, because—

 _De Yi_. 

Left arm missing, chest gaping open, face mangled. 

Dead.

There was a silence above, Luhan realised, when he shakily craned his neck to look above. Not a sound, not a whisper. Suddenly there was a rustle, the sound of shifting feet on the tiles, and Luhan held his breath. 

Another body fell from over the railing, but it landed on its feet upon De Yi's corpse. The beast snarled, looking Luhan in the eye, and Luhan swore it was smirking, as if gloating in his face of its victory. 

Damnation indeed. 

And then all Luhan saw was red. The man yanked his arm out of Luhan's hold, then swinging his fist across his face, and Luhan crashed onto the ground. But he didn't even let himself breathe. With a roar, he lurched to his feet, smashing the man into the wall, next to the crater he'd already made. He punched the air, and the space before him shifted and warped with the force he exuded, and the man's skull cracked into the remains of the wall again. He crumpled onto the ground. 

There was a warbled noise, and Luhan turned red eyes to the second man. The three beasts growled, and Luhan realised they'd been ordered. He swatted away the first beast to lunge at him, then the second one he caught with his hands and flipped it over, slamming it onto the ground on its back beside him. And then he drove a wedge between its ribcage, and black blood sputtered out everywhere; over him, over the walls, over the furniture. If anything, its blood smelled worse than the carcass itself.

But does Luhan give a fuck? 

Now one was dead, and the high gave him the adrenaline rush to face on the remaining two and the man. The third one he caught with his hands as well; holding it by its open jaws in his palms. He didn't know he was this strong, but then again, he didn't know anything he had done was possible. A claw raked itself across his chest, and Luhan held back a scream. He ripped its jaw apart, its face tearing along its cheeks up to the top of its skull, as he used his powers to hold the beast in place, and once again, he was drenched in black blood. 

He turned a murderous eye towards the man, but before he could move towards him, a growl from behind him had him rolling to the side on his knees. He grasped at the tail of the beast as it soared by him, taking note of the wicked tip that dripped with a dark liquid; poison? He yanked the beast back, rising to his feet to kick it down. It slammed into the opposite wall, and as it lay there crumpled and whining whines that Luhan had no care for, he reached his hand out, closing his fist around empty air. The last beast exploded, the sudden constriction causing its innards to burst out of its skin. 

What a sight he must have posed now. He who had been tiny in the face of the man and their monsters, who was weak and trembling and helpless. He who stood drenched in blood. 

He turned to face the last man, watching stonily as he withdrew another bladed weapon from his side. It was long, and it was sharp. But Luhan didn't even have to be near the man to kill him. At the back of his mind, he faintly remembered the other sword he'd yanked out of the other man's hand, where it now lay somewhere in the house. He saw the flicker, and before he realised it, the discarded sword was now in his hold, and he whirled around on his feet and stabbed the man through the chest as soon as he materialised behind him. The sword clattered out of the man's grasp when he turned the blade in his chest, feeling a sickening sort of satisfaction at the muffled grunt of pain, and when the man crumpled to his knees, Luhan let go of the hilt. 

The body fell quickly, but it seemed to take a million years in Luhan's head, because all of a sudden he was pulled back into the vision. Of the body falling in the same way, of the blood that coated his chest in the same way, of the same blankness in his eyes. 

He gasped, and the red in his eyes faded, and he found himself staring into eyes as white as the moon. He stared for no more than a second, before he collapsed in the other direction and threw up. 

He didn't need to see to know his family were dead. He _felt_  it; the flickering of their auras were gone. But he went up anyway, as if under some sick spell of masochism. His whole body shook at what he saw. Wei Hao, dead. Uncle, dead. Auntie, dead. All bloody and mangled and broken and missing pieces of themselves. Their flesh exposed to the air. So much blood, too much blood—

Luhan sobbed, finally crumbling, collapsing to his knees. As he dropped his face into his hands, he caught sight of the air around him shifting and warping outward once more in his grief and despair, in the wake of the devastating tragedy. But he didn't care. He didn't care. Not even when the pounding headache came, nor when his nose dribbled blood from the sheer pain, nor when the hook pulled at him to a direction he knew not. He didn't care.

In this story of a broken Alice and a bloody Wonderland, Luhan was the champion, and he chaperoned death.

 

 

 

 

Ten minutes later, a boy was seen running through the dark streets of Beijing. He had on a dark jacket with bloody handprints, a cap smeared with blood, and a mask stained with the remnants of his nosebleed. His skin was mottled brown and black and blue. And he carried with him a veil of death. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woosh, this chapt ended up like a 1000 words longer than the last. Anywho... ;) hey.
> 
> Drop a comment juseyo *finger guns*
> 
> Lmao tell me if theres any mistakes or whatever, my eyes are tired and everythings shaking


	3. animals of war

* * *

October 13th, 5.16 p.m.

* * *

 

If it was any consolation, Yifan had never intended on killing them. Well, maybe he did a little, but they had meant to kill him more. What was he supposed to do other than protect himself? Let them go through with it? Though, perhaps he probably may have went too far. 

He looked down at the blood staining his hands, crusting under his shortening fingernails. Black and red, and red and black. Bloody saliva ran down his chin, and he wiped it off, spitting out what remained in his mouth.

Yep, he definitely went too far. But when he was anything other than himself he found that self-restraint was a hard thing to maintain, especially when he was being hacked with blades and chewed at by other animals bigger than himself.

Distantly, his ears picked up the sounds of an oncoming car around the bend. Without thinking of much else, he shifted once more, grabbing the straps of his bag securely between his maw, and ran away. To home. The god-awful smell of pungent blood and infected sores and rotting flesh grew fainter and fainter as he raced away, but the images in his head did not. 

 

 

He had woken up that very morning feeling nothing but anxiety and dread. It was some inate, gut feeling, some kind of primal knowledge. An extremely primal feeling. It was very much the exact same way when an impending disaster was about to happen, and all the animals in the area began behaving concerningly weird. The feeling pricked at his senses, made his skin ripple involuntarily, and oftentimes he found himself sniffing the air as if searching for danger, which he actually was. The edge of his desk that morning had been covered with careless scratch marks barely twenty minutes into the first class, and his restless behaviour had him snapping at anybody that ticked him off, with _fangs_ , and of which he'd struggled to hide all day. 

Something very, very bad was going to happen. 

And oh _god_ , Yifan had wanted that something bad to happen soon, because being restless and jittery really wasn't his style. It made him uncomfortable on a physical level, where his skin itched to warp and shift into something else, where his fingers itched to sink into warm flesh and blood, where his eyes would turn to slits and sharpen just so he can pick out possible threats more easily. Just so he can jump head-first into danger. 

But what the fuck, he couldn't do that. Not here anyway. Here were normal people all around him, all who lived normal lives with their subpar, uninteresting human capabilities. He'd struggled already trying to maintain all his human faces in front of the many different people in his life, and really, he didn't want to adapt to even more perceptions that would be made of him if he showed them _that_  side. _That_  side was private to him. He'd never showed that side of him to anyone. Not even to his dad. 

So of course he was terrifed to hell and back when he saw the men outside his university. In the chill of autumn, their clothes could have passed as normal, but Yifan's eyes had sharpened in that split second of spotting them across the street, and he concluded that, no, they were definitely not from around here. And no, they as a whole definitely were not normal. They wore strange cloaks that dragged across the concrete that were mottled grey and brown, and their hoods were pulled low over their eyes. The lower halves of their faces were covered by dark-coloured scarves that were tattered and ripped at the edges, and on one of them Yifan swore that was a splotch of something darker. Their figures were bulky and misshapen, like they were storing many things under their cloaks. The sight of them terrified him to a level beyond comprehension, because for a reason he couldn't comprehend, he knew they were there for him.

Yifan had blinked once, twice, saw a strange shimmering behind them, and then they were gone. 

He'd frowned, but shook his head. Maybe... he was just seeing things, he'd reasoned. Yeah. Maybe the weird dread feeling he'd been feeling all day made him hallucinate things just so he'd find an excuse to extend his claws. 

He'd quickly turned to go home, and all the while the dread didn't alleviate. 

If anything it just got worse. 

At that time of the day, the sun was already sinking down to the horizon, quickly turning the sky a fiery orange colour. There were dark clouds cluttering the sky in the distance, but he wasn't in any danger of getting wet soon. The roads were blaringly loud to his ears, and the smells of gases from passing vehicles and body odour from people around him were now more routine than nuisance. He'd used to have the need to plug his nose everytime he went out, because his nose was more sensitive than most and people can just be so freaking smelly at times, but he'd gotten used to it by now. 

He always walked home, mostly because he would actually suffocate if he took public transport, partly because he didn't like asking his parents for money simply just to hail a taxi home, and also partly because he always needed to stretch his legs. Late night runs were always best after getting his muscles exposed to the strain after being cooped up in a desk all day. And this day more than others, because his eyes couldn't help but shift by themselves as they darted left and right, on the lookout for anything that seemed out of place. 

His nose twitched everytime he passed a new smell, but they didn't set off any warning bells. The sounds of the townspeople rushing back to their homes were a distant buzz in his ears, because he was so used to them they were nothing more than white noise at this point. Everything was normal so far. 

As the sun began sinking below the rooftops of the houses around him, he turned down the road that took him into his neighbourhood district. He lived in the suburbs, in a quiet little corner of the town. The people here were nice, and weren't overly nosy, and at the very least he would receive a friendly wave from a neighbour who happened to see him out on the road. The streets here were swept clean, and there were colourful birdhouses every house or two, and the shrubs and trees were clipped to pristine perfection. A little yellow bird flitted around his head a few moments, and he recognised it to be the one he'd partaken with in a playful race this morning, right before he left for school. He smiled at him, waving his fingers in greeting. The bird flew off, and then Yifan was greeted by the squirrel that lived in the big birch tree in Ms. Drew's front yard. She scurried up his pant leg, winding around his form and finally perching perching herself on his shoulder, nosing at his ear. 

"I don't have food for you right now," he said to her apologetically. "I'll come visit later." 

It wasn't uncommon for his neighbours to see him talking to the animals that lived alongside them in the neighbourhood. He'd long since lost any sense of shyness at talking with his friends, and likewise they've just come to assume that he was a giant animal lover, cooing at them like normal people would to their pet dog, and that the animals have just taken a liking to him in return. They've never actually heard what he said to them, and so they never knew that he had actual conversations with them about legitimate matters, like how the birds from four houses away told him that the feed in their birdhouse hadn't been renewed in four days and so he should go talk to Mr. Jordan to please change them already, or how the squirrel that sat in Ms. Anne's birch tree told him that Ms. Caroline's little tabby cat from down the street liked to bully Mr. Evans' Doberman next door. Just last night he'd received a visit from the blue bird from across the street who started talking shit about the neighbour birds and how they'd stolen the berries the blue bird had so painstakingly collected the entire afternoon yesterday. 

As he continued walking down the path, the squirrel on his shoulder started chattering about other things. There had been a strange ambience in the air today, and all the animals have noticed. Ms. Caroline's cat had been hiding inside her house all day, and Mr. Evans Doberman had been making a racket, howling in what seemed like distress and clawing at the gates. She had just started telling him about a man in an important looking suit that had come in the morning, visiting all the houses, when she suddenly froze, and her sharp little nails dug deep in the skin of his shoulder. He grit his teeth, hissing and clenching his hands in his efforts to not throw her off, because he knew there was a reason for her sudden fear. He felt her suddenly fluffed up tail twitch aginst his nape. At the same time, he noticed the silence in the street. He knew there wasn't exactly a large population of animals within the neighbourhood, but there were enough that they made noticeable noise if one payed attention enough. The birds have gone silent, and the little critters hiding in the bushes have stopped their chirping. Even the wind seemed to cease, for not a single leaf swayed out of place. But Yifan kept walking, because he didn't know what was behind him. 

And then he smelled it. A fucking rotten smell, of decayed blood and poisonous breaths and festering sores. It was so fucking potent he felt the need to throw up his lunch, could actually feel it coating his skin. The squirrel bristled, her agitation rolling off her in waves. 

"What is it?" He murmured to her, and she told him. He frowned. 

He cast his gaze forward. His house sat at the end of the street, still far away at this point, and if he ran he would be run down to the ground. If he stood his ground he would be chopped down where he stood. These were terrible options. But... there really wasn't much else he could do. Coming to a decision, his eyes hardened, and he stopped walking. 

The squirrel immediately started panicking, shrieking in his ear the moment he stopped, clawing at his skin to move, but he simply plucked her off his shoulder and stuck her to the trunk of the tree beside him. She shot upwards to hide within the leaves. Then he turned around. 

The two men had stopped in their tracks several houses away upon seeing his own stationary position, and Yifan wasn't exactly surprised to see them. He expected it, really. But what really caught him off-guard were the two creatures flanking the men. They were unlike anything he'd ever seen before. They screamed vile corruption, monstrosities of animals, creations that should have never come to life. Their jaws were wide and powerful-looking, and they held large teeth coated in viscous green saliva that looked sharp enough to shred even his toughest hide, and their eyes narrowed at him in challenge. Their claws were gigantic, and once again, sharp, and the dried flecks of blood on them definitely told him tales of their use. He stared at them right back, and he felt his heart drop to his stomach.

His eyes darted around momentarily. He couldn't see any of his neighbours pressing their faces to the windows of the houses around him, no sign of life in the neighbourhood. That was strange. He sniffed the air, finding nothing as well. The beasts' stench was strong, but they couldn't have overpowered the numerous other bodies in the area, could they? There wasn't even the sound of any television on, nor the sound of cooking food. Ms. Lewis always started making dinner at this time, in her house two houses away from where he was standing right now, but he couldn't hear her shuffling her slipper clad feet and rattling about her kitchenware. 

But whatever. He'll worry about that later. He cast his eyes forward, licking his lips in anticipation. "Is there something you need?" He called out to them. The men did not answer verbally, but one of them did, with a flick of his hand. Instantly, the beasts let out twin howls, thundering down the asphalt towards him. He flung his bag to the side, racing forward as well. 

He took a deep breath, then threw his body downwards, catching his weight on two furry front paws instead of his hands. He sped across the road, and he supposed he must have made quite a comedic sight, because even the beasts slowed down in surprise at the sight of him. What was a little black jackrabbit supposed to do against two gigantic monsters like them. But he was plotting. 

Successfully taking them by surprise, he ducked between the two front legs of the beast on the right, and before he could collide with its back legs, he twisted to the left, where he launched himself upwards onto the second beast's back. It was a stupidly brave move, but Yifan was nothing but stupidly brave. The beast's back was covered with countless sores and scabs, most old and some new, and its hide was astoundingly thick and leathery. He doubted he could sink the teeth of even his strongest form into it. But the skin of its underside; its neck and chest, was softer. If he had an upward-facing horn and managed to get himself under the beast, he could stab it. He didn't know if that would be enough to kill it, but it would surely hurt it. Anything was good at this point, actually. He saw the pointed tip of its tail too, and how it dripped with a dark liquid, but honestly... that actually didn't concern him much. He just had to aim for the head and the neck. 

He just had to make sure he was fast enough. Those jaws would snap him in half if they caught him. 

He bounded away from the beasts, back in the direction he came from, immediately hearing the sounds of giant paws battering against the asphalt behind him. He took a deep breath, then shifted again, feeling his bones shift and his muscles warp around, and felt the bony plates protruding out of his skin. Then once the transformation completed itself, he rolled himself into a ball, just in time too, because he felt the woosh of rushing air above him as a beast surged above him, not expecting the change. As they skidded to a stop down the road, claws screeching against the asphalt, he shifted again, and bony plates were quickly replaced by feathers, and his front legs turned to wings. He took to the air as soon as the beasts turned themselves around. 

Now he set his eyes on the men. He swooped down, talons extended to rake themselves across the top of a hooded head, but before he could make contact, the body disappeared. 

He narrowly avoided a swing of a sword then, lifting himself high up into the sky. He couldn't even find it in himself to be surprised at the appearance of the sword; the disappearance of the man just straight up shocked him. There was no other word for it, he was just shocked. Were they like him, he thought? 

Men with powers out of this world... there was a corelation. 

What did they want with him? Did they really want to kill him? Why else, when they've brought with them savage beasts so vile and corrupt the first thing they thought to do was challenge him? 

He should kill them first before they got that chance. Yeah. That's a good plan. 

He swooped down again, now in the direction of the beasts. He found himself staring into a mouth full of teeth, dripping with saliva, and he lifted off just before he could be snapped up in those jaws. He dropped himself onto other's beast's back, shifting into a monkey, worming himself around and under its body. He clung on with his nails, finding purchase in the many scabs literring its skin, and then, quickly before the beast could buck him off, he turned into a leopard, now clinging by his claws. Then he sunk his teeth into the beast's neck. 

Blood spurted into his mouth while the creature howled with rage and pain. He bucked his head, just to worsen the injury, then quickly detached himself from the creature's body when he caught sight of the other beast about to close its jaws around him. He skittered across the road, a ways away from the beasts, the fight now at a standstill.

He snarled, showcasing his teeth full of black blood. 

They met head-on now, him now an enraged rhino against two vicious beasts. He slammed into the uninjured one first, dipping his head and digging the horn on his head into its ribcage. He flung it to the side, then side-stepped to ram into the injured one now. Its claws caught in his skin as it toppled down, and Yifan grunted in anger, shifting into a gorilla. He grabbed the beast's bloody neck, roaring as it clawed his chest open with a vengeance. With a growl, he snapped its neck, and more blood sputtered out over his form. 

There was the sound of chains rattling, and Yifan whipped around, dodging the weapon that came sailing towards him. A large blade was attached to the chain, which was attached to one of the men's hand. He found himself growling in rage at him. 

But then other beast came charging at him, so he had to dodge that, turning into a falcon and speeding upwards. He dropped back down, shifting into a gorilla again as he plummeted down. He dropped onto the beast's back, sending it crumpling against the asphalt. There were no sounds of bones breaking, but Yifan had managed to disorient it. He leapt off quickly, swivelling back around to bash his fists into its fallen body, but it kicked its feet up. Its claws tore his skin across his fists and the undersides of his arms, and Yifan howled in pain. He grappled with it, bashing it mindlessly over and over again, and once he saw it start to weaken and slow down, he shifted once more, transforming into a leopard and biting down on its neck too. He scratched at its underside with his claws, like how any frenzied cat would, tearing at the soft skin and making black blood soak his fur. But that wasn't enough to kill it. 

He saw its tail come up, the wet tip glistening dangerously in the light of the dying sun, and launched himself off the beast just as it come for his own neck. The beast rolled onto its feet, growling at him with a rage that mirrored his own, and for a moment, all they did was stare each other down. It was a purely animalistic instinct, though Yifan's human side was yelling for him to fucking move already. 

Oh. He had an idea. He was nothing if not stupidly brave. Him in his animal forms just amplified that aspect of him. 

He charged at the beast, and it charged at him too. The distance closed rapidly, and right before they would collide, Yifan leapt upwards again, even higher now because it seemed the beast had grown accustomed to his fighting style. He shifted into a monkey once again, missing its jaws by mere inches (and Yifan in the human side of his brain felt his life shorten by like twenty years), then running over the ridge of its back and across its tail. He hung on, and against the whip-like movements as the beast continued running, Yifan grabbed hold of the base of the poisonous tip, held it to his mouth, and bit it off. 

There was another angry howl of pain, and Yifan felt nothing short of satisfied at the sound. Fucking music to his ears. Ah, but he could do without the blood in his mouth. 

The beast skidded to a stop, flicking its tail, and Yifan was shot off like a projectile, unable to hold on due to the blood under his hands making his grip slippery. He rolled across the ground, holding the broken tail tight in his hands. There was a 'pop!' in the air beside him, and he raised his head to see one of the men about to kick his tiny monkey body. He screeched, shooting off in the other direction, then swivelled around when another idea struck him. He moved to the man, grabbing hold of his leg before he could teleport away, then climbed up his form. He was way too fast for the man, and before the man could grab hold of him, he plunged the tip of the tail into the back of the man's neck. He wrenched it out as the man crumpled, leaping off with a yell. 

He hoped there was still enough poison in the tip. The last beast roared in challenge as he met its eyes, and they both charged at each other once again. At this point Yifan had no time to give himself a breather, can't even let himself take stock of things of formulate another risky plan. He'd caused so much havoc, and the rage in both the eyes of the beast and the last man at the end of the road were just so palpable in the air. 

He feinted left, then quickly turning right when the beast moved to intercept, swinging himself up onto its back again. He wound himself around till he was facing its underside, then drove the tip into the middle of its chest. 

The beast growled at the pain, but it didn't fall. Perhaps that wasn't enough. So Yifan did what he did best, and shifted again. He wrapped his now serpentine body around the beast, multiple times longer than the usual snake, winding tight around its torso and neck in a bid to asphyxiate it. The beast thrashed around, growling, bucking and trying to claw him off with its claws. Yifan's scales took the brunt of the attack, and wow fuck he didn't expect it to hurt it this much. He hissed, withdrawing slightly, slithering around its body as he morphed his jaw. His fangs began to drip with a poison, and he darted forward, sinking them in its throat. He held fast, injecting as much poison as he could, then finally, after he felt his jaw begin to ache, he released his hold, transforming into a common house fly and flitting away. 

He dropped down onto the road in front of the beast now fully human, facing the last man. He didn't need to turn around to see the dying beast. It let out pained moans and whines, low rasping breaths deep in its chest as its muscles constricted involuntarily—he didn't know the technical side of what poison does to a body, but he knew at least it was a very painful death. And it satisfied the animal in him. 

His human side, well, just felt disgusted. There was blood all over him, under his nails, in his mouth, and it tasted fucking revolting. Exhaustion was creeping up on him, as the adrenaline began to wear away as he himself stepped away from the peak of the battle, and he took little pants to assuage the burning in his lungs.

But he was given no time to rest, because suddenly the last man was in front of him, with a fist aimed for his face. Yifan ducked, then lunged forward to tackle him onto the ground. They wrestled, the man managing to land hits on his front, keeping him from shifting. The man struck him across the face, and Yifan growled in pain. He grabbed the collar of his cloak, pulling the man towards him as he bashed his head into the other's. This gave him finally the opportunity to shift, and so he did, first turning into a rabbit to put some distabce between them. Then, as the man rolled onto his hands and knees, he shifted into a lion, his large size and brute strength knocking the man onto his back. His claws sunk into the man's chest, while his teeth sunk into his neck, and he felt the life leave his body with the blood that sprayed into his mouth. 

He let go of the corpse, and in the high of his victory, he released a mighty roar. It rang throughout the neighbourhood, louder and more fearsome than the beasts' own howls. Satisfied, he licked his lips, then shifted back. And then immediately, he threw up. 

He hacked up the last of the blood in his throat, groaning at the pain of shifting so many times. It wasn't as easy as it looked, shape-shifting. His muscles and bones had to get used to changing shape and form every time he did, and if he did it too many times consecutively the discomfort turned to raw agony. He'd crossed that line a long while ago. 

And. The blood. In his mouth. That was disgusting. 

Snapping his head up, he sucked in a panicked breath upon realising suddenly that his neighbours could see. But after scanning the houses around him, he remembered that they weren't here for some reason. If they weren't here, would that mean his parents wreren't here too? They would've come to pick him up from school if they had, maybe. At the very least, they would've texted him about any change of routine. 

He looked at the blood on his hands, spat out the rest of the blood in his mouth, then took off, snatching up his bag from against the tree where it lay. 

 

 

He pushed open the front door, smearing blood all over the doorknob. As he turned to shut the door, he caught sight of a figure up in the sky. A large solitary bird. The sight terrified him, and he slammed the door shut. 

"Honey?" He heard from deeper in the house, and he bolted to the source. He found his mom in the kitchen, with their kitchen knives spread out in front of her on the table. 

"Mom!?" He cried, at the same time she yelled his name in shock. 

"Are you bleeding? Oh my goodness, this is so much blood, what happened out there?" She continued fretting over him, tugging at his shredded clothes. He hissed when she pressed a hand against one of his cuts, and she gasped.

"If I said I'm fine, I'd by lying," he said. "But don't worry, please. Why are the knives on the table? Where's dad?"

"How can I not worry?" She shrieked. "My son is bleeding!"

"Why the knives? Where's dad?" He repeated. His mom glared at him for all of three seconds, letting him wither under her wrath. 

"The knives are just precautions. And your dad should be home by now. He went out in the morning after you left for school, to search for his friends in China, he said," she told him, leading him to sit on a chair. She left to find the first aid kit. 

"What? In China? But that's a very long trip, how's he getting there and back within a day?" He asked, raising his voice so he can be heard. His mother rushed back in side the kitchen before she answered. 

"He flew, dear."

"Well, yeah, I mean, that's how you get from one place to another—"

"I mean as a bird."

Yifan watched her take out the medical supplies as he slowly processed what she said. "...what."

"Why do you think you can turn into animals too?"

"Wait, huh." He shook his head from disbelief. She motioned for him to take off his shirt, and he did so. "Wait, _what_. Wait, you knew—?"

"Of course I knew, honey. Your dad knows too. Why did you keep it from us, by the way?" His mom said. 

"Because I thought it was _weird_ —" He cut himself off with a yell of pain as she dabbed alcohol on the claw marks on his chest.

"This is what you get when you go around fighting fights bigger than you," she scolded him. He was about to whine, when they both heard the flapping of gigantic wings outside in the backyard. They swivelled their heads around, and Yifan almost had a heart attack seeing the large bird from in the sky touch down in the backyard. 

"That's your father," his mom told him, and then he did have a heart attack. 

 

 

"The time has come," his father said, once he and his wife managed to calm Yifan down completely. His wounds have been dressed, and now they sat around the kitchen table, his mother holding his dad's hand in two of her own, while a steaming cup of coffee stood in front of the older man. Yifan still could not believe it. For all this time, all his life he'd thought he was the only one like this. The only with powers above human capabilities. And all this time, it was his own father who had gifted him with these gifts. 

"There are so many things I need to tell you," his father continued, and a stricken look overcame his face. "But there's not enough time for me to possibly tell you everything. To explain. Those men; I saw you running from their bodies, and I know it sounds disturbing, but son, I am _so_  proud of you. I barely had to teach you anything at all and you can already take down such dangerous foes. And using Earthling creatures at that! The warzuk are not creatures normal men can easily fell, but here, my son has fell _two_  of them on his own, barely into adulthood. If only I could share this with my clansmen, they'd hail you as champion before you even needed to go through the trials... I confused you, didn't I?"

"Uh?" Yifan arched an eyebrow, cocking his head at his dad to convey that _yes, he was_. "Yeah, there's no way I'm gonna understand any of this with how you're talking right now, so why don't you start from the beginning?"

"Right, of course," his father nodded. He glanced at his wife. "Before that, I need to explain that I wasn't allowed to disclose any of this information. If not I would have told you _everything_ , but Sytrei thought it unwise. We could not tell anything to our children, until the time is right. But none of us knew when that time would be, and I fear that it is too late now."

"Who's that?" Yifan questioned. "Sytrei?"

"The mother of one of your companions. My dearest friend." He took a breath, and Yifan saw what looked like heartbreak in his eyes. He frowned. "I'm bringing you to meet her son soon, as well as the others. She had powers of the mind, and she received a vision many years ago of you children embarking on a journey to save our... _my_  kingdom. My kingdom in a land far away, in a galaxy vaster than this one—"

"You're an alien!?" Yifan exclaimed. His father paused. 

"Technically, yes." 

Yifan gasped, eyes going wide. "Mom, he—you—an alien!?"

"We've gone past this, honey," she said calmly, in a manner that did not reflect in Yifan himself. 

"That's not important right now, son," his father said a little impatiently. 

"I'm sorry," he said quickly. "So... from the start?"

His father took a while to think. "I suppose you'd like to know who I was before all this," he said. "I was born in the kingdom of Ivindor, one of the Six Great Nations of Rausk 'ath Madin. The name my mother gave me is Zyniad, and I am a descendant of—don't give me that face, do you know how weird it was for _me_  when I got to know the names on _this_  planet?" He scowled at his son, swatting at him. Meanwhile, his mother simply chuckled.

"Ivindor was founded _aeons_  ago, by a great prince of the neighbouring kingdom Aedlin," he continued. "It is a... a _magical_  place, a place of opportunity and potential. Its inhabitants are hardy, and stubborn, and reckless to the point of stupidity, but we protect what is ours with every last breath in our body. In the time of His Majesty the Lord Thrivelon, massive wars have been waged upon Ivindor, but never once had she fell. Each kingdom needed their own soldiers, their source of defense and protection, and for Ivindor, they are called the Circle. The Circle is a group of warriors, whose founders were blessed with powers by the Lord Thrivelon himself. I am a descendant of Lothirin. Lothirin's line are men and women who can take on the physical characteristics of beings other than themselves, be it man or animal or monster. Shape-shifting, if you want a simpler term. We are one of the clans of the Circle, and our purpose was simply to protect and serve our kingdom. We are the military, the soldiers granted with the responsibility of upkeeping the peace and safety of the kingdom. Each of us train practically from birth how to wield and use our powers to the best of our ability for the sake of our kingdom. We protect the royal line, as well as the civilians; to the trade routes and the mountain passes in between. We represent hope, beacons of safety to the hopeless and the weak."

"Uhuh," Yifan interjected. "So why are you here? How does this involve me? What role do I play here, because if I remember correctly, _I_ was the one who was attacked, not you."

His father rested a heavy gaze upon him. His mother lowered her head, staring down at the tabletop. Suddenly everything seemed so sombre.

"In my childhood, there had been rumors," his father said. "Of a dark shadow in the west, of an evil growing. They were just rumors between me and my friends, but of course, we couldn't have known that it was much bigger than that. That it was much realer. When I was twelve, Circle members and their children in the many fiefs of the kingdom were killed. Word reached the High Castle when it was too late, and all the reinforcements that _we_  sent out were killed too. I don't know how so many Circle members could be killed so effortlessly, but we didn't stay to find out. I was taken, along with several other children, each from their respective line, out of the planet altogether, and it was then that I finally realised the actual extent of the danger that Ivindor faced."

His father took a deep breath, suddenly looking so tired, so stressed. Yifan saw lines of age appear on his face, the wear and tear of emotional turmoil and mental distress carving themselves into his father's face. 

He had a sudden realisation. "Wait, so... your friend, Sytrei... she said that we—us children... will embark on a—"

"Yes," his father said quickly, with such a pained expression on his face it made Yifan think he could not bear to hear the full sentence. 

He let out a quick exhale of disbelief. Chuckling nervously, he said, "Wait... you can't actually mean that... that _children_  can save your kingdom?" He looked at his father, but his father could not meet his eyes. He looked at his mother then, and she only gave him a resigned, forlorn gaze. "Mom? You're not sending me off, are you?" She let out a broken sigh, glancing at her husband. He looked at him too. "Dad? Are you serious?"

"I wish I wasn't, but this is what's been foretold," he dad replied. 

A bubble of rage filled his chest. " _You're kidding, right?_ " He hissed. "You're sending your child off to fight a fight your ancestors could not win? You're sending me off to fight _your_  fight?"

"This is your fight just as it is mine," his father snapped. 

Yifan scoffed. "No it isn't," he said. "Was I born there? Did I exist at the time your kingdom lost to this enemy? Are you hearing yourself, Dad? If so many others, those Circle members or whatever, fully trained and professional ones got murdered by whatever the fuck—"

"Yifan," his mother hissed at his language. 

"—is out there then what makes you think children can stop it?" He continued. "That _I_  can stop it? I almost _died_  fighting just two men and two monsters, what will happen to me when I have to face more—when I—if I—" He paused to swallow thickly, and the scowl melted off his face. His eyes filled with desperation. "Dad? Dad, please. I'm not like you."

"Son, if I could, I would go there to stop the threat myself," his father said, in a beaten tone. Yifan couldn't believe it. "But I can't—"

"You're really sending me off?" Yifan gasped. His vision grew blurry with tears, and normally he would try to hide them, but now he was too distraught to care about his image. "Dad, how could you—?"

"I don't like this anymore than you do, Yifan!" His father burst. "I don't like the fact that I have to see my son enter the place I can never enter again just to fulfill some—some prophecy. I don't like the fact that I have to send children off to war, that they have to finish off what my people couldn't. I don't like any of this anymore than you do—I'll hate it more than you ever could, Yifan, because _you're my son_. How could I do this to you? _But I don't have a say_. I knew this day would come sooner or later, and I prayed every day and every night that it would come later, and I wake up this morning and I knew this would be the last time I'll see you in a very long time. I sent all the neighbours away because I knew _they_  would come, and I came back as fast as I could from the other side of the world because I couldn't let you face them by yourself. But then I see you, alive, wounded but alive, and I can't help but believe that—"

" _Oh my god, you're sending me off_ ," Yifan sobbed. He buried his face in his hands, sinking his forehead down to rest on the tabletop as his shoulders started heaving derangedly. "You're really sending me off—"

He didn't expect the wave of pain to hit him so suddenly like that. Neither did his parents, evidently, from the way they yelled in panic and alarm at how his body fell off the chair to the floor. Yifan convulsed in the sheer agony of it, screaming at the top of his lungs as he clawed at his hair. It was so painful, too painful. Distantly, he felt a hand close around his shoulder, turning him into his back, and he found himself facing his father's distressed expression. Tears leaked from his cheeks, but there was nothing any of them could do to stop the pain. It felt like hours, and Yifan didn't know what really knocked him out; him bashing his head against the floor, the sheer pain, or the anguish in his chest at the realisation that his father was being serious about him leaving. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ayo wassuuuuuup yall ive got 60+ hits with just two cahps this is i n s a n e i love you all
> 
> Btw before i get flagged for plagiarism or anything if anyones here from aff this is the same author presenting the same TLOI... i hid the one on aff and im revamping it here first....... because im an insecure bitch who can never be satisfied and i hated what i wrote on aff. Ill probably reupload everything here back to aff in the future idk. 
> 
> Also stream tempo i love exo so much


	4. rise of the guardian

* * *

October 14th, 6.42 a.m.

* * *

 

As Junmyeon stood there at the start of the bridge, gripping onto the end of the railing for dear life while the other held onto his wildly churning stomach with about a dozen people murmuring and shifting discontently around him, the only thought that he could really comprehend in his head at the moment; the solid, undeniable truth of the moment was that his father was _keeping secrets_. And he was upset about it. 

Not really about the fact that his dad had been keeping secrets. Everyone kept secrets, that was no big deal. Most were tiny, others were devastatingly huge. Junmyeon had several of his own too. Like any other normal human being. And usually he really couldn't give less of a shit that people had secrets, not even if they're his own parents, because why did he need to bother himself with the business of others? What the fuck? He was better off just worrying about himself. But when those secrets concerned him? In a way that made it seem like some kind of life-or-death situation? Yeah, he very much would like to know all about them.

 _He wasn't the only one_. That stark realisation was what really made fury well up in him like some kind of angry, bucking horse, made anger simmer below his skin just on the verge of exploding out. He wasn't the only one besides his dad with powers out of this world, with eccentricities that he wasn't sure would be readily accepted by the rest of humanity. Why did his dad keep this from him? All this time, he'd been so _lonely_. It was hard trying to make friends and trying to connect with others when he was constantly aware that he was _not like them_ , not like them at all. When he had something more than just blood running through his veins. When he was of a whole other race of humans, somewhere out of this very Earth, when he had ties to more than just this one barren land. When he had abilities that would probably make him susceptible to ridicule as a kid, where other mean children his age would probably think of him as weird and uncool and possibly make references of, what, The fucking Last Airbender only as a mockery of him and his differentness and not as a form of praise nor reverence. Children had an uncanny ability to make others feel like shit, he knew. He suspected that parents would warn their children to stay away from him, because he knew roughly their train of thought; they'd think of him as some kind of witch, or the child of a witch, some evil, unnatural being. Maybe some would think he was cursed upon his birth, or maybe that his _parents_  had been cursed, and that any involvement with them would put others at risk of the same curse as well. Or maybe some would think it was a disease, and a contagious one at that, and would probably appeal to his school to have him removed. So many options, so many roads, and all of them were in no way desirable for him. Him most of all. And all this time he didn't know _why_. 

The truth was impossible to pry out of his father. He'd tried almost everything he could think of; throwing tantrums, threatening to break furniture, treatening to flood the house, but all it had taken was a raised eyebrow and an ' _are you sure_ ' look on his father's countenance and he would scurry away to hide in his room with his tail between his legs. And without answers. 

Just once, his dad had finally tried to appease him with something. 

"Don't worry about it. The time will come for me to tell you, but the time is not now," he'd had told Junmyeon, when he was ten. "Be careful with these powers. Some people won't like them. I'm not forbidding you to use them, but I'm also not sure how to encourage you to use them either, because it's difficult doing that in the city. But above all, be grateful you have these powers. They're here for a reason." And then he left for work, and they'd never spoken about it again. 

And though Junmyeon was itching to find out more, he knew every attempt he'd make to get his father to talk would be futile. His dad was a naturally closed-mouth person, and the number of words he said on any normal day could be counted on both hands. The only one who could get him to actually talk was his wife, but then again, she herself was quite the quiet, reserved person. They were both perfect for each other, really. His house was usually filled with silence, and sometimes the television was turned on only to serve as background noise, but don't get the wrong idea. His family was a loving family, a more actions-than-words kind of family, and he genuinely didn't mind. Except on those on-and-off occasions, like this one, where he wished his dad had actually, like, you know, communicated with his son more. 

Why did he have to find out like this? On a bridge surrounded by other people, riddled with confusion and agony like no other, and fighting every single cell in his body so that he wouldn't pass out. He would've fainted earlier like the other boy had, but the sight of the fearsome sculpture the boy had made with his ice on the bridge railing had jolted him back into the land of the living before he could completely go under. 

And so he stood there, clutching at his stomach with gritted teeth and trying desperately not to cry at the sheer pain, watching as the other boy stumbled around in his own confusion and panic as the crowd gaped and pointed fingers. Many took out their phones to record videos, and Junmyeon felt his own heart breaking when he saw the devastation on the other's face. There were so many setbacks at having eccentricities, especially with eccentricities like _theirs_ , and usually they were at the expense of that same person. It was a terrible situation to be in, but all the situations Junmyeon could foresee them both being in would be terrible. 

Everything was terrible. And that was the truth. 

The boy's eyes appeared glazed over as he backed up, distraught. The people around Junmyeon weren't any help at all; they only served to agitate the kid even further, only made it very clear what they thought of him.  _Abomination, monster, cursed_. A terrible being set to cause havoc in the realm of normality. 

What did that make Junmyeon? 

The boy didn't stay very long. He'd doubled over at the second wave of pain, and Junmyeon himself had to resist his own buckling knees and swallow down the vomit rising in his throat. Then the boy lurched in the opposite direction, his legs appearing to be a blur as he raced away from the bridge. Junmyeon stifled his cry, partly caused by the feeling of something _hooking_  onto his insides and begin pulling him somewhere, and partly because he knew there was no way for the other kid to hear him, and knowing there was no way _he_  would get out of the mess he would cause if people found out he was the same too. The only option was to follow him, but Junmyeon didn't even know why he considered that an option. What was the point of following him? What would he get out of it if he caught up to the boy? They didn't even know each other, him being a year younger in their university. He couldn't even recall having seen the other around much, though he probably would have trouble remembering anything at this point anyway, with the pain still running rampant in his system. 

But how didn't he figure out sooner? Or at least suspect something, because the older just really screamed suspiciousness. He should've seen it in the way he dressed himself, and how winter seemed to behave around him, and how he seemed to behave in winter. It was all tell-tale signs that _something_  was amiss, that something didn't sit right, and while everyone actually did recognize this, they really couldn't have known that the older was like _that_. But Junmyeon? When he was exactly the same? When he too underdressed in this freezing weather and he too behaved the same way in winter, because what they both could control were essentially the same thing. 

 _Of course_  he wasn't the only one. Because when there was water, there was fire, and where there was fire, there was air, and where there was air, there was earth. _Of course_  they weren't the only ones, _of course_  there were more, _of course_  he wasn't alone. How could he have not seen this sooner? How many more were out there, just as confused as he was? Running away like the other one was?

He stared at the claw of ice on the bridge railing. It had formed in the wake of the sheer force of the pulse wave, and Junmyeon knew that must have been caused by _someone_. In the world he now lives in, of course that was caused by a person, especially when it had happened to both of them at the same time. It was no coincidence. The way the claw curved and bared its jagged ends like that just screamed agony and terror and, if he thought even deeper, some sort of hidden, barely concealed rage. It was a truly a fearsome thing, and beautiful even, in some aspects. It was born of panic, and reckless abandon, and it unleashed what truly lay deep in the other's core. 

It was a cry for help. 

Perhaps that was why he felt the urge to go after him. Not to sate his curiousity, but to ensure that the older was alright. That he was safe and unhurt and without any fear. It was a bone-deep instinct, to see that he was safe and sound and to offer him protection as if _he_  was the hyung and not the other way around, and Junmyeon realised he really couldn't hold it off for longer once the people around him found the courage to finally venture across the bridge. They snapped a few more pictures of the gigantic claw on the railing when they neared it, and he noticed how they gave it a wide berth, as though it were actually somehow alive and capable of attacking them.

As Junmyeon himself passed by, he motioned with his fingers for the ice to melt, and it did so rapidly, much to the surprise and dismay of the small crowd. He crossed the bridge quickly, stepping off the path in the direction where the other boy had went. Casting a glance behind, he saw the crowd still standing on the bridge, muttering to each other about what they had just witnessed. Some were entirely fixated on their phones, and Junmyeon had no doubt those pictures and videos were going to spread like wildfire soon. It was probably what everyone was going to be talking about for the next couple of days. 

Next he cast his gaze downwards, at the quickly-moving stream of ice water heading towards him, unseen against the ground. He looked back at the front, eyes looking for where the other might have headed, as the water crept up to his fingers and soaked into his skin, waiting for its next use. Junmyeon hoped he didn't have to use it, for whatever purpose there may be. But as the element swirled around in his bloodstream restlessly, with traces of its previous owner's tumultuous, anxious energy, Junmyeon realised suddenly that, indeed, he would need to call on his power in the near future, and many more times ahead. 

It was going to be a long day, he decided. A long, exhausting day. And it was going to be terrible throughout.

* * *

October 14th, 3.18 p.m.

* * *

 

It had been roughly nine hours since he'd started following the older boy. On the third hour, he'd been overcome with a blinding panic when he thought that he'd gotten himself lost, that the pull in his gut was leading him in a direction other than where he wanted to go. The city was silent; there were the barest signs of human life around, because it seemed that this early winter was becoming worse and worse with every passing second since the pulse wave, and everyone had hid in the buildings, where it was warmer. Even the shops that had opened in the morning were now barren, and their owners had hid themselves in the backroom after seeing that no one would enter them any time soon. He thought this would have made it easier to find the other, with the lack of other interfering feet, and that he could track down the other's footprints. But then he realised after a while that there weren't even any footprints on the path he was on save for his own, because snow was still falling steadily and had covered up whatever trace the boy had left behind. That's when he panicked. 

But he found there wasn't much else he could do, now that he's gotten himself into this predicament. If he strayed away from where the pull was taking him, he was punished by pain, and the only way for it to recede was if he got himself back on the path set by... whoever it was. Hopefully he would intercept paths with the older. There was a chance that would happen. Perhaps the pull was fashioned to pull them _all_  together, so that they all, however many there were out there, would finally meet. 

He was right about two things. News of the strange boy had spread quickly, so unexpectedly quickly, really, that it had shocked him when he was bombarded by the very same videos and pictures that he'd seen be taken on the bridge. They were all over the Internet; on Instagram, on Twitter, on fucking Facebook, and like holy shit this was going to be so terrible for the other boy. He was about to put away his phone when he spotted several missed calls by his parents and about a hundred messages by his mother and only five by his father. He grimaced, opening the chat with his dad, because he knew talking to him would be less painful than if he talked with his mother. 

_'where are you'_

_'myeona call me'_

_'junmyeon'_

_'did smth happen to you'_

_'myeon what are you doing'_

He pursed his lips, wondering what to answer. He didn't want to call his dad, because if he heard his voice he would be entirely convinced to go home and ignore the other boy ever existed. But he couldn't. He couldn't do that. Couldn't leave his friend like that. Surely his dad would understand? He'd have to know there were more. 

He quickly typed a reply, closing the app once he did. 

_'went to track down someone. hes like me. ill be back home soon, promise.'_

He never liked making promises, because he was never sure if he could keep them. But whenever he did, he always made sure to make them count. He desperately hoped this one wouldn't break his streak. 

He shoved his phone back into his pocket, determined not to look at it anymore, though his dad might try to contact him again. He couldn't get swayed like this. He needed to find the boy. He needed to help him. 

And he was also right when he assumed that the pull's purpose was actually meant to gather them together, because it was at that moment when he saw a flash of movement way in front of him. A person had disappeared behind the corner of a building up ahead, and when he concluded that said person looked distinctly male, Junmyeon felt his hopes soar. He was wearing a jacket the exact same colour as the boy on the bridge, and he moved like a frightened animal, exactly the same way the boy had moved on the bridge. His attention piqued when he caught sight of something white hanging by the boy's side in the split second before he vanished behind the building. 

Junmyeon had to grit his teeth as he pushed against he pull's lead, crossing the streets and buildings that had separated him from the person he'd seen. It felt like claws raking his flesh from the inside, but he bit back his pain and pushed forward. When he turned the corner, he gave a start when he found the boy nowhere in sight. 

He cursed to himself, pulling his school bag off his shoulders and slid down the wall next to him. He hugged his arms around his body, pressing against his stomach. Shit, he'd lost him. Banging the back of his head against the building wall, he sighed, looking up at the dark sky. Snow continued to fall, and occasionally, a gust of wind sent them swirling through the air. He sucked in his teeth when the pain persisted, when all of a sudden, it stopped, and the pull resurfaced again. Junmyeon raised his head at this. He splayed a hand over his stomach, then looked at the direction the pull was leading him to. It was the same as the one the other kid was heading in. He breathed in deeply, feeling hope surge in his chest again, and before he knew it he was pushing himself off the ground, shouldering his bag again. He took off, running now, because the boy couldn't be that far. 

And he was right. When he rounded a corner, he found himself facing an open park. Or what should have been a park. There was nothing but blinding white, and heaps of snow everywhere. There was a grove of trees in the far distance, but they looked like black skeletons now, barren and scraggly. On the other side of the park, nearer to where Junmyeon stood, was a frozen man-made lake. And sitting on an empty path in a tiny compressed little ball was the boy he'd been chasing after all day.

A relieved, victorious smile graced his face, and he was about to step out of the shadow of the buildings when suddenly the older boy let out a scream. Junmyeon jumped, scuttling back under the shadows, heart hammering in his throat. That sounded so scary, he thought. It was a scream that reverberated through the air and shook the skies above, because when Junmyeon directed his gaze upwards, he found the snowflakes to be pouring down in buckets now, as if compelled by the emotion in the boy's scream. A wind blew through the park, straight at Junmyeon, and he found his eyes stinging at the freezing cold and his hair whipping about his head in the wake of it. He wiped at his eyes, blinking through the tears, and when he looked forward he saw the boy continuing on the path. 

Shit. He better hurry. 

But then... something else. Happened. 

He slowed his run to a stop when he saw what looked like a door appear straight out of thin air. It glimmered, appearing a deep blue against the whiteness all around it. Junmyeon kept his eyes on it, mindful of the boy that was getting further and further away. 

And then _monsters_  burst out that doorway, straight for the boy. 

He bit back a cry of alarm, feeling his heart slam against his ribcage. He swallowed painfully, suddenly stuck rooted to the ground. What should he do? Six fucking beasts, six of them, and holy  _fuck the kid was gonna die_. _He_  was gonna die. Holy fuck. 

What is happening? Why is this happening? 

Two men stepped out of the doorway then, big men wrapped up in tattered cloaks and with scarves around their faces. Junmyeon only cast one look at them before finally knowing what he had to do. 

He ran towards them. There was no way for them to know he was there, because they had their backs to him and his footsteps were muffled in the snow. He ran with all his might, drawing out the water he'd stored in his bloodstream earlier. It filled his swinging hands in giant balls, swirling around his clenched fists as he raced forward. It was all pure instinct now; he never knew he could do this, never even contemplated about it, because why would he need to when he'd lived such a safe life all this long? It was all instinct, and so he let instinct rule over him as he shot his hand forward when he got within range. The ball of water around his hand left, now a projectile meant to kill, made razor sharp at the speed it was flying towards the man. He felt it enter the man's chest, felt it get mixed with blood so corrupted that Junmyeon felt sick himself. There was no warning for the man's death, but the men themselves didn't intend to give any warning to the boy they're trying to assault. So why should Junmyeon? 

The other man spun around upon his companion's body hitting the ground, and that was when Junmyeon heard the older boy's cry of pain from across the park. He only cast him a single glance, just to see him sprawled out on the ground as the beasts swarmed him, and he grit his teeth as he advanced on the second man. There was the sound of metal against leather, and Junmyeon found himself slowing a strike of the man's sword through a slew of water. It didn't really perplex him that much that he was being attacked with a sword; he didn't think much could surprise him now after seeing the beasts. 

Every time the man slashed, Junmyeon blocked. Every time the man striked, Junmyeon evaded. It was a gruelling fight on Junmyeon's end, especially when he realised he wasn't going to win anytime soon, so his mind scrambled to find any advantages he had. All he had was his water. And the snow around him. And—

His eyes lit up, but then they squeezed shut when the sword slashed at his chest, leaving a diagonal line of red. Blood bloomed across his shirt, and he gasped at the pain. Just as quickly, the man kicked at his legs, and Junmyeon tumbled down. He scrambled away, rolling across the snow, a bit awkwardly because of his bag still strapped around his shoulders. Before the man could get any closer he slammed his palm down on the white expanse. 

Like a bullet shot from a gun, there was  _something_  that flew out of the tips of his fingers, straight at the man. The path left behind by that force and the snow around and under the man turned to liquid in the blink of an eye, and suddenly the man was submerged shin-deep in freezing water. Junmyeon grinned to see that he had successfully disoriented him, and before he could let the man right himself again, he held his hand out, palm facing outward. 

 _Please let this work_ , he thought, as he began clawing at the air, pulling his hand back to himself. The man stilled, and so Junmyeon did it again, holding his breath as he clawed and drew his hand in circles, until he saw the scarf wrapped around his face begin to darken with liquid. 

He gasped, dropping his hand to the ground just as the man's body did, heaving from exertion. Was he dead? He didn't know. Perhaps he'd just dehydrated him, left his brain with half the water it originally had. But was that enough to kill someone? He forgot. 

So he slammed his hand flat against the ground again, then quickly overturned it, so that his palm faced the sky, and spikes of melted snow burst out through the man's torso, stained with blood. 

He looked for the other boy now.

There—in the distance, fighting against the beasts. He spotted two dark mounds collapsed on the snow just at the circumference of the scuffle, while the remaining four beasts attempted to snap at him with their jaws. But even while severely injured (Junmyeon's eyes widened and his breath hitched when he saw the blood,  _so much blood_ ), the boy was still putting up a good fight, but he knew he couldn't last. Junmyeon had to intervene. 

He glanced to the side, stretching his hand out. There was the loud cracking of heavy ice as the waters of the lake rushed outward to meet his command, and he took several steps forward to shorten the distance as much as he can. But the weight of the lake he was holding up in the sky was too much, so he was forced to stay where he was. He raised his arm high in the air, swinging his arm in wide circles above his head, and feeling the drag of the water as it followed his movements, and for a moment, he thought he had just made eye contact with the boy. 

He was right again when the other immediately curled up on himself, conjuring up a dome to hide his body under. And without another second's hesitation, he shot his arm forward, and the small sea of water above him surged forward as well. It rushed at the beasts with a terrifyingly loud noise, crashing into them and sweeping them away, and the force of his attack managed to knock out all of them at once. The miniature waves tumbled over and over each other, and for a moment Junmyeon wondered if it would stop at all, but then it did, and he saw the crumpled forms of the four beasts laying on the far side of the park. They never once stirred, so he was inclined to believe they wouldn't be waking up soon. As he continued to keep his eyes on them, he could see faintly frost forming on their figures, the freezing cold already solidifying the water they were soaked in. 

He panned his gaze to the boy then, who was still under the dome. He tried taking a step forward, but a wave of pain brought him to his knees. He hissed as he caught himself on the palms of his hands, then felt around at his front. Blood was still dribbling out of his open wound, staining the whole front of his shirt a deep red. It wasn't a very deep cut, and hadn't sliced through his internal organs (fucking _thankfully_ ), but the pain was practically debilitating, and he wasn't sure if it was possible to die of blood loss from a wound like this. The still flowing blood made that seem like a possibility, but he was willing to bet he would live to see tomorrow at least. 

He promised his dad he would return home, after all. 

Grunting from the pain, he shakily rose to his feet, pressing against his wound. He closed the distance between the two of them, and he collapsed again once he reached the dome, this time out of exhaustion. Panting, he knocked weakly against the wall of ice, calling out in a quietened voice. 

"Hey," he said. "Hey, you're safe now."

There was no response for several seconds, but then he caught sight of the ice thinning under his hands. He shuffled back a few inches to give the other space as he sat up slowly, blinking wide cat-like eyes around him. The boy let out a slow, deep breath, turning his head to seek out the four beasts, and Junmyeon saw the tension in his shoulders drop when he spotted them lying several dozens of feet away. 

He gave the older a few moments more to regain his bearings. He shifted suddenly, and his breathing hitched, hands shooting upwards to press against the wounds on his front and shoulder. 

"Fuck," was the first thing Junmyeon heard him say, and internally, he replied with a monotone 'same'. "Fuuuck."

"You're bleeding too much," Junmyeon heard himself bite out against the horror he felt when he cast his eyes over the full extent of his wounds. "You're—You're wounds— _fuck_."

"I'm gonna die," the other boy said, voice frantic, eyes wide and panicked. "I'm gonna die, aren't I, fuck I'm gonna die."

"No, no, no you're not," Junmyeon said despite himself. "We c-can slow down the bleeding, at least. Maybe? Freeze over the wound. That'll slow down the bloodflow, right? Will that work—does that work?" What if it doesn't, since this guy could control snow. Maybe freezing his flesh would have no effect on him. 

"I don't know, I mean, I'm winter, y'know?" He said. Then he frowned. "I mean I'm Minseok. Kim Minseok. And I have no idea what to do."

"Kim Junmyeon," he replied. He looked around him, even though he knew there were no other humans in the vicinity. "Take off your shirt. We have to clean the wounds."

"Ah, fuck, that's gonna hurt, right?" Minseok said, but he was already pulling his jacket off. Or at least trying to, because his left arm seemed immobile for some reason. Minseok looked up at him hopelessly, and so Junmyeon offered assistance. His shirt came off next, a bloody and tattered thing now, and when Junmyeon finally saw what lay under it, it felt like the air was stolen right out his lungs. And in the really bad dreadful way. 

His whole chest was torn, covered in bloody scaratches at the edges. His left shoulder had been carved with teethmarks that went in through to the bone, the muscles at the top of his arm mostly severed, and green saliva coated the edges and the insides of the wound. Both he and Minseok shared despairing glances when they looked at it. The older tried moving his left arm, but when it moved upwards barely a few inches, he swore loudly. 

"Fuck!" He cried, bloodying his hand even further when he clutched at his arm. "Fuck, fuck, fuckfuckfuck—"

"No, no, you'll be alright," Junmyeon tried consoling him. "We'll find someone to fix this. Your arm will be back to normal—"

"Fix this!? How can anyone fix this?" The older exclaimed. "Is there even anyone out there who can fix such a thing?" He gestured to his shoulder. "It's gone, it's bloody gone—"

"No, no," Junmyeon interrupted, in a firmer tone. "We'll find someone. We will. If there is ice and water, then there must be fire and wind and earth, right? But there must be more, because the pulse wave couldn't have come from any of them."

"You think there are more?" Minseok asked. 

Junmyeon nodded. "I'm positive. There are definitely _way_  more than we'll think, and if there are _more_ , there must be someone who can fix broken bodies. A healer. There must be one of them."

"Then we have to find him," Minseok said. 

"Yeah," he nodded again. "The pull; it's pulling us to each other. We'll follow wherever it's taking us, and hopefully we'll be able to get to them in time." The rest of his sentence was left unspoken, but they both knew.  _Before you lose your arm, before it gets worse, before you die_. He looked at the older helplessly, shrugging. "I mean, there's not a lot of options right now, and I doubt you'd want to go to the hospital, tempting as it may seem—"

"Nah, fuck that," Minseok cut him. 

Junmyeon nodded. "Okay. So we'll clean your wounds, then... then we'll..." he swallowed uneasily. "We'll find the others. Wherever they are."

"And once we find the others, everything goes back to normal?" Minseok ventured. Junmyeon could only stare at him, mouth partially agape but without any words coming out. He averted his eyes sadly.

"I'm not... I'm not very sure about that," he admitted. "All I can say is that hopefully the pain goes away, and that... we wouldn't be alone, at least. I don't think—I really don't think we could ever go back after this."

Minseok frowned, looking away. His eyes went unfocused as he stared at his face. 

"Will I ever see my family again?"

Junmyeon looked up sharply. "Yes you will," he said with as much conviction as he could muster. If not for Minseok, then just for _himself_. "You'll go home—we'll all go home. We just have to make it through whatever's ahead of us."

Minseok pursed his lips. He flicked his eyes back to the younger. "You're injured too," he said, gesturing to the cut across his torso. Junmyeon shook it off. 

"This isn't as serious as it looks," he clarified, sensing the change in topic. "Yours though."

Junmyeon began pulling the moisture from all around them, and when he had a substantial enough pool of water in his palms, he lathered it over the shoulder wound, apologizing profusely when Minseok began cursing at the top of his lungs. There was no hope in staunching the blood, and everytime Junmyeon pulled his hand away it only got stained further and further with red. After a while, he had to stop himself, because the wound was too large for him to stop the bleeding completely. At least it was cleaner now, with no traces of green or dirt. 

"Okay, I'm gonna fill up the cuts with water now," Junmyeon said, flicking his hands of stained water. He cupped them again, pulling moisture straight from the air. "You'll freeze them over, okay? It probably won't help heal the wound, but at least it'll stop the bleeding. Keep the blood where it's supposed to be."

Minseok nodded weakly, gulping. Junmyeon gently poured the water in the open wound, letting it spill over, and swiftly, the older tapped a finger onto the little pool. Junmyeon removed his hands at once, nodding in satisfaction once the ice fully settled in Minseok's shoulder. It wouldn't completely restrict his bloodflow, he knew, because there were still large sections of his shoulder that were unaffected, but it'll only allow enough so that his whole arm wouldn't die. 

Wait. Right?

He pursed his lips, deciding it was no use pondering over it right now. They had to move soon. He quickly repeated the process with Minseok's other wounds, a bit awkwardly when he had to clean his chest. Then, when he was done, he let the older recuperate with what little time they had left as Junmyeon cleaned his own wound, but he didn't bother with freezing it over. After checking, he concluded it was little more than a skin wound, and that the reason there was so much blood was because the cut itself was large. He would still live. That left him with enough energy to worry about the older. He really hoped they found the others soon. 

"What do we do about them?" Minseok asked, nodding towards the beasts. They had not stirred once ever since Junmyeon had arrived by the older's side, and there was honestly no way of knowing whether or not they were dead. Unless they were to go ahead and prod them to see for a reaction, but that was literally the furthest thing either of them wanted to do. 

Junmyeon shrugged. "We'll just have to leave them. There were men with them, but I killed them."

"You _what_!?" Minseok cried. Junmyeon gave him an uneasy look. 

"It was either me or them, Minseok." His jaw clenched involuntarily as he averted his eyes, scrunching up his eyebrows. "In this world we're living in now... our powers—they're ours to use to kill. There's more of _that_  out there, wherever they came from, and where there's more of them, there's more of them to kill. I—" He had to stop, drawing in a shaky breath. Death, killing, blood; that was nothing easy to talk about. Much less commit. There was nothing easy about this. Everything was terrible. 

He saw the shaken look in the older's eyes, but he had to continue on anyway. 

"I want to apologize to you, but there's nothing for me to apologize for. This is our life now, but know that I'll always be here beside you. You won't be alone. I promise you, Minseok." He waited for Minseok's nod. "I'll cover them with more water, then hopefully the cold will freeze them to death before they wake up." 

He waved a hand above his head, looking upwards as water formed in the air above the beasts' bodies. It splashed down upon all four of them, and then he saw them freeze over immediately. He looked to the side, and caught Minseok lowering his uninjured arm, still looking away from him.

They stood, with the help of each other, Minseok slinging his bag over one shoulder, and Junmyeon feeling his own get weighed down with the stress of what was to come. With one last determined-slash-dreadful-slash-hopeless look, they made their way out of the park. And because he never went back on his promises, not for one single moment from then on did he leave Minseok's side. 


	5. right hand man

* * *

October 14th, 5.43 a.m.

* * *

 

He woke up with a terrible start, one that was filled with pain and agony and a burning heart. His scream was cut off halfway when his throat started spasming, and his eyes rolled to the back of his head when he threw it back against his pillow. 

Body jerking onto his side, he wound his arms around his stomach and curled up on himself. Pain was exploding everywhere inside him, like fireworks in a previously silent night; pounding away in his head, melting down his innards, and clawing at his skin. It was pain unlike any other, the kind that clouded his mind, and for a very long moment he couldn't think of anything he could possibly do. 

So he laid there, curled up in the darkness. Drool leaked out the corner of his mouth as he stayed still, almost numb under the pain, and he said 'almost' because he could still feel the pain; hadn't gone under far enough to not feel the painful sparking deep in the fibres of his muscles, in the joints of his limbs, but he was too far out of it to do anything about it. He found himself cross-eyed after staring at black nothingness for so long.

And then the pain _did_ go away, almost all at once, leaving nothing behind except a faint tremoring in his head and a weird sensation in his gut. But at least he wasn't paralysed anymore, and now he scrambled to do the only thing he could. 

Not that he  _could_ do it anyway, he thought, even if he put in all his might. It was an on-and-off thing; sometimes it came, and most of the time it didn't. Didn't want to. Couldn't. But trying was better than letting the pain go on, even if he failed to succeed for the thousandth time in his life.

He turned onto his back and raised his hands to his chest, laying his palms flat against his breast. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath, as he began to search for that stray thread. It was a fleeting thing; an almost indiscernible part of him, and it was thin and difficult to see, and most of the time he couldn't even touch it. Couldn't even pinpoint it long enough to draw out what he needed. 

To his complete and utter astonishment, he found himself holding that thread in a matter of seconds. Precious few seconds that were nowhere near the length of time he'd come to in the past trying to search for the damned thing. And connected to that damned thread was an ocean of power; an ocean so vast and infinite as he plunged into its depths, filling him up with an alien energy that was both calm and turbulent at the same time. An ocean he had no knowledge of before. He felt his breath be taken away, but in the best of ways, and... it felt like he was sinking. Into a deep, blissful sleep. A state of rest so profound and euphoric, he had a hard time picturing himself in any sort of stressful situation. 

His eyes snapped open, and he looked down to see green. A soft yet vibrant glow had lit up his hands, illuminating his dark room, and as it continued to glow he felt the healing energy that he'd found always so elusive flowing through his veins like an unhindered river, raging and loud and boastful. And all at once, every last remnant of pain and every ounce of discomfort that resided in his body vanished. His head stopped feeling so dizzy, and that weird sensation in his gut—a weird _pulling_ sort of feeling—alleviated. 

And now he felt nothing, except his power rushing through his veins energetically, as if it was adrenaline.

He felt nothing except the thrumming in his fingers that had held that same energy, excited at the prospects of such power. His limbs felt light as a feather, and his head so clear, like an empty cavernous room in which all his thoughts could dwell in without fear of being unheard. And he heard them all. 

He felt nothing except bafflement, puzzlement, and anger. 

Because  _what the fuck was that? Why_ the fuck was that? _How_ the fuck did that happen?

It was like... the pain that had woken him up was also the reason for his power to suddenly be so reachable to him. He was fucking _furious,_ because _why_ did it happen only now? Where was it all those years ago? He didn't know why this was. Only that it made no sense. So did he have to go through pain to unlock whatever other thing he was supposed to do, supposed to have all along? That was _stupid._  

Why did it come now? Why couldn't it have come earlier, way earlier in his life, when he needed it the most? What was the point of him feeling at ease now, so free of physical pain and emotional torment that his own powers had helped get rid of when he couldn't save—

That was no one's fault. No one's fault, he reminded himself. Absolutely no one's. He was way too young to have made much of an impact anyways, and she'd never set such high expectations of him in the first place. Didn't want to stress him out any more than she already had. He was way too young to even let himself carry such a burden, and she... she was too far... gone. Too far gone to save when he realised what was going on. 

But if he could harness such power now, after that... pulse wave, that is, then he should've done something to make that pulse wave come earlier. Anything that could've been done. If he'd always contained such a large reserve of power, then he should've found some way sooner to get it all out. So that he could have an actual real chance at saving her—

No one's fault, he whispered to himself. No one's fault. It was simply her time to go. 

He turned over onto his side again, pulling the covers up over his shoulders and staring out into the slowly brightening darkness of his room. A glance at his alarm clock on the table showed him he would have to get up in less than an hour. 

He burrowed himself under his covers even more, closing his eyes. Faintly he wondered if his powers could act as a sleeping drug too. 

No one's fault, he reminded himself. He tried to picture her face, tried to recall her smile, and he felt his heart stutter in his chest when the image in his head turned out blurrier than ever. 

No one's fault, but maybe probably his own.

* * *

October 15th, 4.26 p.m.

* * *

 

Time died when he saw the video. 

The camera-work was shaky, and the film went unfocused numerous times, but there was no mistaking what he saw. Watched. His friends' voices around him faded away until nothing, and everything else around him faded away until nothing too, and all he could focus on was the boy in the film and the strange white behemoth beside him and the pulling sensation re-emerging in his gut. 

It was  _ice,_ he realised belatedly. The boy had created _ice._ The video had captured the moment he'd yanked his hand off the baluster of the bridge railing, which was encased in sheer, thick ice that resembled the claw of an animal. A monster. The boy had then stumbled about on the bridge, and there were several gasps and shrieks from out of the shot of the crowd reacting to his movements. As if he was a monster himself. Anything less than a human. 

He'd never known devastation could be expressed as an emotion before this, but it was exactly what he saw portrayed on the boy's face in that fraction of a second. He saw the heartbreak, the loss, the guilt and the shame, and then he saw his back when the kid spun around to flee. He ran like the devil was chasing him, disappearing off into the distance, and he left nothing behind but the icy claw on the frozen railing of the bridge. 

"It's kinda cool though, right guys?" His friend's voice cut through his mind's frenzied cacophony, where all the voices bounced around in the cavernous space like echoes in the dark night. His friend's head tilted upwards from his phone to look at the others surrounding him. Yixing turned his eyes to him stiffly, swallowing discreetly, then narrowed his eyes at the others who offered their agreement. "Imagine having _powers,_ like damn, all the things we could do."

That was all they saw. The surface. They only saw things that would feed their vanity, that fed their interests. They saw what they only wanted to see—how  _cool_ something was, how they would benefit from it in terms of superficial things like appearances and reputation. They watched the video with a hint of jealousy and envy, he knew, he saw, because they only saw possibilities at having such a power for themselves, and not the repercussions of being anything other than wholly human. Because they had just realised their mediocrity with being just human. 

But being just human was a blessing enough. 

They didn't see the emotions on the boy's face, too enraptured with the ice. They didn't see his panic and fear, minds too caught up in the possibilites if they were the ones with that power. They didn't even think about the way he ran away, didn't even see how young he was, didn't comprehend the severity of the situation. Couldn't comprehend. How could they? They were mediocre, and they were human. 

But Yixing would know. Yixing would know very well. 

And he knows this boy is just like him. There was a link between them, between their powers. Of course there was. There  _had_ to be. He remembered his mom talking about 'others', way back when he was younger, but the memory was fuzzy, and he couldn't remember if she has been speaking to his father or if it was another man altogether. Or if there were more than just one man. Wasn't there a woman, too? He didn't remember. They talked of a lot of things. They talked of the tragedy (just one tragedy), and the exodus (the first to ever happen), and the fallen prince (she mourned him all her life). Talk of Sytrei and what she had seen. Talk of Minolus and Elyon and their sons. Talk of Thaz and where he may be, and talk of Serci and where she may be. And what of their sons. Talk of the next ascension to the throne, then talk of Yixing himself. Then there were no more talks. 

But the point was, there were  _others._ This boy had to be one of them. He had to be. Maybe he was the son of one of the people he'd heard mentioned, with names foreign and strange-sounding on his tongue. Otherworldly.

"I guess this explains why it's snowing in Korea already," another friend piped up, cocking her head to the side. "Why it always snows so early in Korea. Because of a _boy."_

His first thought was now to find him, find the boy who was the son of winter. But that would be difficult to accomplish, because the last the boy had been seen was on that bridge in front of his university in Seoul, Korea. Yixing was in the province of Changsha, in China. 

Looking up at the dimming sky, he thought, _Well, better start now_.

His urgency made him forget to greet his friends goodbye, but when he looked back, he realised they hadn't even been aware of his departure, too engrossed in the topic of the boy and his powers. He scoffed, turning back to the front. Alright then. 

He tripped over a crack in the sidewalk when he stepped out onto the street, and by pure instinct, the used-to-be dormant healing energy started roiling deep in his core, ready to be let out to attend to any injuries. It  _used to be_ dormant, but it wasn't anymore ever since yesterday morning. The morning he first received that pulse wave that jolted him out of his sleep, that made him spasm uncontrollably in pain and broke down that thick, impenetrable dam that had made it so impossible for him to tap into his power before. In the past, it used to come out in little trickles, out of tiny cracks that he would have to find for days on end, and even then it usually wasn't anywhere enough to heal any injuries worth healing. The pulse wave was the one to unlock his powers, and it still made him furious—

_Anyways._

Back to the present.

The pulling sensation had emerged once more, in full-force the moment he'd laid his eyes on his friend's phone screen and registered what it was he was actually looking at. It _felt_ like a pull, anyway, he wasn't actually sure. It felt as though something had hooked somewhere behind his navel, and it felt like he was being tugged in certain directions. He'd been pushing it back with his powers, swatting it away everytime it came back, along with a most painful headache that he mostly certainly could do without in class. But both came back with a vengeance every time, and so he found himself using his powers in these two days way more than he ever had since he was nine. 

And right on cue—as the pull spiked once, urging him to get a move on—he felt the headache come. It was headsplitting, but only for a second before it was washed away by a soothing river of green in his veins, up his neck and into his head. He sighed, feeling the tension dropping from his shoulders all at once. But he did not push back the pull. This time, he let it run free, because he needed it to take him where he needed to go. If his hunch was right, he'd be able to see them soon. However many there were. Whoever they were. Wherever they were. He just needed to follow. 

He sent a short explanatory text to his father, with as little detail as possible, but still highlighting that he wouldn't be coming home for a while. He wasn't really worried about his dad, because he knew his dad wasn't very worried about him. He'd never been, even before his mom...

If he were to think logically he knew, after such a thing, a parent would want to be closer to their child, keep their child under their protection, all that parent stuff Yixing wouldn't understand yet for a long while coming. But there had always been a barrier between him and his dad, which persisted even till now. Perhaps it was because of his... bloodline. His lineage. Where his mom came from. Where he belonged. 

Though, honestly, he was rather thankful that his father didn't have such a tight leash on him. He'd never be able to embark on this journey otherwise. 

The pull led him through the streets, away from his usual route back to his house. At this time of the day, the streets were fairly packed with people, most of them being students from his school and the other two nearby local colleges heading home. He kept to himself, with his hands stuck inside his pockets, eyes scanning the crowd for the off-chance he'd spot a familiar face. 

Or, maybe not familiar. He's never seen the others before, minus the boy on the bridge; didn't even know which country they were settled in. A small stone seemed to have fallen in his stomach when he wondered, what if they were across the ocean? How was he supposed to find them then? He didn't have the money. 

What  _would_ happen, though, when he did find them? Would there be a spark? A large cosmic bang that would shake the continent itself? Would he feel like a puzzle piece, finally slotting into place in a giant puzzleboard? Would he feel like he'd finally come home?

There was no way of knowing, he thought, not until he finally met them. And until then, all he had was the pull to lead him to them. 

The crowd began to thin as he continued threading through the streets. The sun was slowly sinking even lower, and the light yellow of the sky began to darken to a bloody orange, and he thought that a... strangely befitting omen to what was to come. Lots of darkening days. Lots of sinking wills. Lots of blood to be spilled. 

Because of course. 

He found him at a crossroads. The sun had about a quarter left to go before it fully sank beneath the horizon, but from where he was still submerged in the city, the sky above him looked an ashy blue, greyish and dull. At this time the number of people still in the streets had dwindled down to a handful, scattered few and far between. Yixing was alone on this particular street, wandering now more than he was searching, because the pull was leading him to jackshit nowhere it seemed, and all the signboards he'd seen and roads he'd crossed put together didn't give him an inkling to where he was being led. 

He wanted to sigh when he spotted the crossroads, because then he'd have to figure which road to take, because sometimes the pull wasn't very clear in where it wanted him to go. But then the sigh stalled in his throat when he caught sight of the person standing by the roadside, and his legs slowed to a stop. 

There was no spark, no cosmic bang that shook the ground under him. He only felt the pull lessen dramatically, till it became but a faint tugging on his skin, and suddenly he could breathe easier, could think easier. 

He didn't feel as though he were a puzzle piece finally finding its spot, nor did he feel like he'd finally come home to a place he'd been alien to all this while. He only felt... right. 

The sole of his shoe scuffed against the gravel below him, and the faint sound had the other snapping his head to the side. Their eyes locked together, and Yixing found himself staring into bruised, bloodshot eyes. Shadows were cast over them, making the redness in the whites of his eyes appear a dull rusty colour. There had been a blankness to those eyes, a dead cadence slotted over them that had Yixing gulping, and had involuntarily set the healing power hidden within him into overdrive. 

Because that was not natural. That sort of expression was not natural at all. And it physically _hurt_ him to see it present on a person, especially when that person was to be his brother. The last time he'd seen a similar sort of expression, he'd seen it on himself whenever he looked into the mirror. He'd been twelve then. Back then when she'd left, and when he was hurting for two whole weeks before his face got any lighter. 

But he'd never looked like this. 

So dead and numb. 

Yixing didn't know what emotion played on the young man's face, whether he mirrored his own awestruck expression or whether it was the complete opposite, because he had on a mask that covered everything from the apples of his cheeks down to his chin. His jacket was zipped up to the top, and his hands were jammed into the pockets of his pants, revealing not an inch of skin. But Yixing could see enough to tell that he had been through hell and back. 

For his hair to be matted with so much blood like  _that,_ for his eyes to be seeping red like  _that,_ for him to look like  _that,_ Yixing didn't know how he was even still standing. 

The young man blinked once, slowly, a mere acknowledgement of his presence, and then he was slinking away, disappearing into a side street. Yixing started when he realised, and subconsciously he marvelled at the speed in which the other moved. He sprinted forward, darting into the street his target had disappeared into. He sucked in his teeth, panic blooming in his chest when the street before him laid empty. 

But then he saw a black-clad leg disappear into an alley by the right in the distance, and so he ran there. 

He was dragged into a game of chase, and everytime he thought he'd finally caught up with the other, the latter would just end up further away, and Yixing just ended up more and more lost. Here the back-alleys were interconnected in some sort of giant maze, and no matter where he turned, left or right, all he managed to accomplish was to disorient himself, and he began to grow dizzy as the walls around him melded into one grey-brown blur, and the young man was no closer to his reach than when he was at the crossroads. 

Through the spinning of his vision, he saw now the back silhouette of the man enter yet another pathway, disappearing from his view by the tall walls around them. He thought he saw a flash of red by his eyes, but he pushed that thought aside for the one that screamed about how _close_ he was this time, and so with one final burst of energy he pushed his legs to take him there. 

He turned the bend, convinced the game would finally stop now, but his legs skidded to a jarring stop when he saw a wall in front of him. A deadend. And no person in sight. 

He gaped. Unable to do anything else, but stare and frown at the emptiness before him. He must be mistaken... but he was so _sure_ he had turned in here. He _had._  

But then, where was he?

He let out a deep, rasping groan, resting his hands on his knees as he caught his breath. He sent a soothing wave of energy to the burning in his lungs and the fiery ache to his legs and feet. 

Had he been hallucinating? Was that possible, right now? Had he been  _that_  desperate to see a sign he'd just created a whole person out of thin air for only his eyes to see, let a figment of his own imagination lead him on a hopeless chase through the outskirts of the city? 

He sent up a wave of energy to his head, just in case. 

He straightened up once his breathing evened out, casting his eyes forward. There was no where for the other to have hidden, he noticed, not when the walls were bare without obstructions and without holes or cracks large enough to conceal a whole human body. There was no way for him to have been able to scale the wall opposite him either; it being too steep and too high, and without any footholds. Unless he ran and jumped, but even then, Yixing doubted he wouldn't have been able to hear him scuffling against the wall. 

There really was no one here. Yixing hallucinated. 

He sighed, hanging his head. Licking his dry lips, he wrapped his hands around the straps of his bag, then made to walk off sulkily back out to the open road, back to the crossroad. 

But his way was blocked, by a figure standing at the mouth of the alley. 

He screeched in fright at the sudden appearance, stumbling backwards, almost falling flat onto his butt. The young man turned to him slightly, body turning the tiniest bit from where he'd been facing the way they came. 

"Shh," he said calmly, quietly, voice muffled through his mask. He turned back to look out the alleyway. 

Yixing was anything but calm and quiet. 

"You—! You were—!" He pointed right at him, then inside the alley, then back at the man again. His brain suddenly didn't know what words were, and promptly severed the connection between itself and his mouth, and he was left mouthing out incomplete words and unintelligable sounds as he gaped up at him. The bloody man.

His mind flashed him words :  _psychopath, murderer, monster, evil, spawn of Lucifer._

He was promptly silenced, in his head and from his mouth, when the young man turned to him fully, and he was pushed back by a heatwave of pure, raw energy. He stumbled again, deeper into the deadend alley ( _where there was no way out_ ) when the other took a step towards him. His eyes were _red,_ holy  _shit;_ not a bloodshot red or even an itchy red or a rubbed-too-hard-to-get-at-an-eyelash-that-wasn't-even-there kind of red. His irises were tainted a deep scarlet, and the sclera a thin sheet of translucent red like the blood that marred his face. They were glowing in the dying light, casting strange shadows over the top half of his head, and— _psychopath, murderer, monster, evil, spawn of freaking Lucifer._

The other boy came to a stop at the halfway mark of the alley, but Yixing kept backing up till his back hit the wall behind him. He let out a desperate sob, cowering, because what the fuck, he didn't wanna die. There was still so many things he wanted to do. To experience. He was too young to die. Fuck, if he had to beg to keep his life, then so be it. 

He didn't see the other frown. 

"Yixing." 

He snapped his head up, wide eyes trained on the other. His throat spasmed painfully when he gulped. 

He heard him sigh. "Calm down," he said. "Why would I hurt you?"

He wants to yell all the possible reasons, but his voice was still failing him.  _Psycopath, murderer, monster, evil, spawn of Lucifer._

"Hey, c'mon. Seriously, calm down." He tilted his head to the side, looking at him as if he was searching for something. Then he laughed, a soft tinkling sound, but it sent chills down Yixing's spine all the same. He looked away then, casually, as if this were some normal conversation taking place and he was gazing at the scenery around him. But Yixing swore he saw those red eyes waver a bit. 

"I'm sorry if I scared you," the man said. He continued speaking in the same soft tone, just slightly above a whisper, though somehow it managed to carry all the way over to him. His voice was light, and had a sweet, alluring lilt to it, but it remained deadpan, void of emotion. "It's kinda hard to find a place to take a bath when you're on the run like I am, y'know."

As Yixing scrambled to piece together words to form a comprehensible sentence, he saw the man scowl. It was a tiny, barely there tilting of his eyebrows, but it ignited a deeper fear in Yixing, because whatever had managed to break that dead expression on him must surely be significant enough for him to fear. 

He spoke before Yixing could finish mentally forming his sentence. 

"Sorry, I need to keep this short. I'm Luhan, we're the same, and I need you to stay where you are."

His almost-formed sentence fizzled to nothing. "Huh?" He said instead, dumbly. 

"Just stay right there. And don't worry. I'll keep you safe."

 _Keep him safe from what?_ he wanted to ask, but then the boy—Luhan turned around, and Yixing caught sight of the biggest men he's ever seen in his life. There were two of them, and they'd just turned the bend into the alley. They were so big and broad they couldn't walk side by side in the alley, and they were enshrouded in mottled cloaks that dragged across the ground and which Yixing just _knew_ were hiding weapons. He didn't know what kind of weapons they had with them, but there were weapons all the same, and oh god, today was the day he died. 

"Shh. Calm down," Luhan said over his shoulder, soothing him for the third time. He gazed at him softly with eyes as cold and as hard as rubies, then unhooked his mask off one ear, letting it dangle from the other, and he flashed the petrified boy a small smile. 

Yixing only saw the dried blood on his chapped lips, the broken nose and the cracked front tooth, the large and terrible bruise across his cheek, and he did not feel any calmer, because he then realized this was no man. This was a _boy._ He looked  _younger_ than Yixing was, and boys shouldn't have any involvement in this sort of thing. 

Luhan just smiled placatingly at him, eyes twinkling in amusement as if he knew exactly what he was feeling. "Just stay there, Yixing. I'll protect you," he said, turning back to the front. As he raised his arm, hand open towards the men drawing ever so closer to them, Yixing couldn't help but wonder, in the midst of his scrambled mind, just when did he tell this stranger his name?

He  _saw_ the space in front of Luhan shift and warp, a stream of something he didn't understand billowing out of his hand gently through the air. It made the men halt in their tracks, as though they were forced to, and Yixing wasn't sure whether what Luhan had just done was a warning or a provocation. He sincerely hoped the men took it as a warning.

But then one of the men raised his own hand, and he thought,  _ah fuck. They're idiots._

A doorway formed out thin air, right in the middle of the alley. The edges glowed brilliantly, then the door turned a deep blue, suddenly looking so solid and opaque out of nowhere. And then it fell away, like a trapdoor falling backwards, and Yixing could only handle the sight of monstrous, hulking shadows, yellow eyes, and teeth like daggers in a bear trap-mouth before he collapsed back against the wall with a cry. 

Luhan made no reaction to him, but he only raised his chin confidently as actual  _monsters_ burst out of the doorway now. The alley was plunged into chaos, and Yixing could feel the ground under him shake and rumble from the stampede approaching them, and his scream was lost in the howling and roaring of the beasts as he watched them barrel towards them. Towards him. 

But the monsters never came close to them, because Luhan was there. With a single sweep of his arm, the first wave of monsters were swatted to the side, crashing into the brick wall. A crater formed, and cracks and fractures spiderwebbed all the way up the wall. Yixing saw Luhan close a fist, and at the same time, three beasts crumpled to the ground, and he saw their necks snapped, and spines peeking out through the skin. He could barely keep down the bile rising in his throat.

Luhan was steadfast in his efforts to protect Yixing, because every beast that came their way was felled without a moment's notice. Black blood painted the brick walls of the alley, and in the uneven cobblestone floors little pools were forming under the carcasses. But when one beast fell, three more came to take its place, all surging out from the portal in a neverending stream. Luhan was good at this, Yixing saw, protecting him, but uneasiness grew in him when he saw the distance between them and the monsters shortening with every second. Luhan was good at this; didn't even look tired, though his shoulders seemed locked up with tension, and every breath he drew became more ragged and heavy than the last, but Yixing surmises that was more from emotion than exhaustion. And though Luhan was good at what he was doing, Yixing knows he cannot last. 

The portal, he thought. They needed to close the portal.

But before he could voice this out, a phantom voice spoke in his head. 

 _'Got it,'_ it said, and Yixing accidentally smacked his head back into the wall from surprise. His eyes trained onto Luhan's back. Did he just...?

He did, he realised, when Luhan raised his fists over his head and smacked them down flat against the ground. The cobblestone floor cracked with a terrible noise— _ripped apart_ under the force of Luhan's hands, and it shot a line towards the monsters. The wave advancing towards them broke apart, monsters getting flung off the ground from the force exerted, slamming into the walls of the alley with cries of alarm and rage. 

But the line did not stop yet, and it dashed through the men as well. Yixing saw them stumble, and in their haste to right themselves the man lost hold of the doorway, which collapsed in on itself. Closed. Then Luhan rose to his feet and sent another blow, and they went careening off their feet, landing scattered by the mouth of the alley.

He yelled in joy, and in the high of this small success he closed the distance between him and his protector. His hands gripped Luhan's shoulders, and a blue glow now lit up the darkening alley, bright as the midday sky. And now he poured _energy_ into Luhan, revitalizing him and enhancing his powers. The latter tensed, like a spring about to uncoil, then a moment later drew in a deep breath in surprise and pleasure of the sensation in his veins, and the red glow of his eyes turned sharper, brighter. 

Yixing, seeing this, was instantly reminded of his first impression of Luhan. But he felt no fear now, absolutely none at all. He may have helped the monster grow stronger, but Luhan will never hurt him. There's no reason to be scared. 

The last handful of monsters—couldn't have been more than fifteen—were smashed to bits in a matter of seconds, under Luhan's hand. The alley stunk of rotten blood and carcasses afoul with sores and pus, and normally Yixing would've emptied his stomach by now, but as it was he was too immersed in the feeling of victory that he didn't mind at all. 

There was then a movement in front, and Luhan closed his fists before him, and one of the men started to crumple. But Yixing caught his arm. 

"Wait!" He cried. Luhan turned to him, and he flinched under the sharp red glare of his eyes. He gulped before continuing. "He's still a human. Can't we save him?"

"Save him how?" Luhan questioned. He shook his head. "They're too broken to be saved. You can't fix their type of broken. There's nothing else to do." And then there was the sound of shattering bones, and red blood now spurted out all over the ground and the walls at the mouth of the alley. Yixing flinched at the sight, hiding behind the other. 

He frowned. Animals dying slow deaths he could handle, though barely, but a man lent a swift one he couldn't stomach? What was the difference? 

Luhan caught the other man now, pinning his arms by his sides, then looked over his shoulder at Yixing. The red of his eyes dimmed, and he looked like he wanted to say something, but then he shook his head, and turned back to the front.

Instead, he pulled back his wrist, and the struggling man flew towards them, where he remained suspended in the air before them. He jerked against his invisible bonds, bucking like a wild animal, making strange snarling noises deep in his chest as he glared at the boys before him with _completely white eyes._ Yixing stared up at them in amazement and horror, but then those feelings were dashed away by the amusing thought of how a single boy had accomplished this all. Luhan who was smaller and shorter and younger but had emerged victorious all on his own. 

"You helped me too, y'know?" Luhan said softly to him over his shoulder. "You gotta give yourself credit where you deserve it."

"What I did doesn't compare to anything you've done," Yixing replied. 

"What I've done? You mean murder?" There was a tiny, wry smile on his face. 

Yixing stopped vibrating in excitement, taking a couple steps back as Luhan turned back to the man. He watched the other push off the man's hood, then unwrap his scarf, to reveal his white eyes, scarred cheeks, and total absence of a mouth, only an uneven line of scars where it should be. Yixing's eyes widened in horror, while Luhan just shook his head. 

"Look at him, Yixing," he said. "Total madness."

He pressed lightly two fingers on the man's forehead, and instantly the man went limp. He kept his hand on the man's forehead for all of four seconds before he yanked it back with a hiss, and the man crashed down onto the ground. Yixing stood there frozen as Luhan clutched at his forehead, eyes cinched shut in pain, while the man attempted to get to his feet. He'd barely managed to roll onto his knees when Luhan shot a hand out, then jerked it downward. And under an invisible hand, the man was shoved back on the ground, flattened out, and a crater formed under him. Yixing yelped at that, heart thundering at the terrifying noise that erupted as his eyes flashed to the dead man.

His eyes drew back to Luhan, and he was immediately reminded of his condition. 

"Oh, Luhan," he said, going to him. "Here let me..." He reached out his hand.

Suddenly, his wrist was caught in a vice-like grip, and he gasped when red bled into Luhan's eyes once more. The latter's eyes darted up to his own, and then it was Luhan's turn to gasp, and he let Yixing go almost as quickly as he caught him. He took a step back, shaking his head, and when he look back at him his eyes were brown. 

"Sorry, I'm sorry, I'm just a bit..." Luhan said, but Yixing waved his worries away. 

"Ah, no, I should apologize. I shouldn't have touched you so soon after..." he trailed off. Luhan shrugged him off. He looked up expectantly at Yixing, and the latter willingly consented, placing his hands on the other's shoulders to assess the damage. 

His eyes widened. 

Aside from the injuries to his face—and that was all that could be seen at a glance alone—his whole body was bruised, from his shoulders down to his waist. The left side of his large intestine had ruptured, and he sported a fracture in his left forearm, his right cheekbone was broken, his ankles were inflamed, the muscles of his legs were overworked, and there was a strange burn mark on his chest. Yixing cursed mentally and set to work immediately. How was Luhan still standing? Yixing could _feel_ his pain, and to think he'd probably gone a number of hours like this. He'd rather endure the pulling sensation for three whole weeks than spend an hour under the pain Luhan was in. 

"Eh, I don't feel it much, honestly," Luhan said suddenly, causing Yixing to jerk away for a moment. "I think I've disconnected partially from reality. Or maybe I've just gone numb. I'm not actually sure."

"You can... read thoughts?" Yixing asked.

Luhan nodded. He studied Yixing for another moment, then said, chuckling softly, "I wouldn't pry into any private thoughts, Yixing, and if I really had to I think I'd have good intentions. You were just being very obvious with what you were thinking, it doesn't take that much of a genius to tell what was on your mind."

"Oh," Yixing said simply, cheeks burning. "But how do you know my name?" He put his hands back on Luhan. 

"Like how I know everyone else's," Luhan replied. "I... oh, how do I explain?" He pursed his lips, looking to the side as he thought. 

Yixing hummed. "Take your time," he said. He spent a good portion of the last daylights healing him, then leant back to take a breather; his face and jaw fully healed now, burn mark has gone, and the bruises on his upper body completely faded away. He stepped around him now, placing his hands low on his waist to get at his remaining wounds easier. He frowned. The ruptured intestine was going to take a lot out of him. 

"I was punched in the side by one of the men," Luhan explained, still facing forward. "The burn mark was from the saliva of one of the beasts. Yeah, this time I was looking into your head, sorry."

"Really? I didn't feel you," Yixing remarked. "This would come in useful, actually."

"Hmm," Luhan nodded. "Pray that I don't need to do that on any of you." 

"How many of us are there?" 

"Twelve." He hissed when Yixing pressed a hand too hard on his side, and to which Yixing replied with panicked apologies. After another moment or twenty, he pulled back his hands, stepping back as Luhan looked down at himself, patting at himself in wonder. Despite himself, Yixing couldn't repress his smile. 

"How's it feel?" He asked. 

Luhan turned to him with a smile, and Yixing was breathless at the sight. "Good as new," he said, eyes twinkling. "You have lots of questions," he noted out loud, and Yixing nodded.

"Lots."

"I'll answer them," Luhan said. 

But before he could, they were interrupted by two bodies falling out of nowhere, crashing straight down onto Luhan. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With every update, the chapters grow longer


	6. wilting days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes, im sorry i disappeared like that

* * *

October 14th, 8.04 a.m.

* * *

 Today was a stinking terrible day. Absolutely awful and horrible and full of stupid, stupid shit. One of the fucking worst days in his life, and that's saying something, because he's experienced lots and lots and lots of terrible days before. Terrible days seemed to be attracted to him, in that way. But today was terrible in a way that really got him feeling super angsty, and it felt like someone had set loose a tap-dancing goblin free on his long-fraying nerves. If Baekhyun closed his eyes and let his imagination draw up the little freak, he imagined the thing to be bald and shorter than him, with round eyes and thick eyebrows and strangely he'd be wearing a tux and he'd be tap-dancing as if that'd save him from public execution in the North. 

He sighed. And it was only eight in the morning. 

It started yesterday, when his mom came home in the dead of the night, from wherever the hell she went to all the time. Like, the two of them in the same room was a bad combination already as it is, and things definitely get broken if someone didn't step in. More often than not he'll just pretend she didn't exist, if only to preserve his sanity, and she'll scowl at him like the cockroach she thought he was and then she'll hide in her room, stinking of smoke and beer. They got at each others' throats sometimes though; couldn't help it when he felt so antagonistic towards her and she felt like squashing him under her heel, and they knew if they started they wouldn't stop until something bad happens. Like, something expensive breaking. 

He'd had lots of homework yesterday to rush through, and that one was on him, really. Procrastination was really a terrible thing to have, but everytime he thought of bettering himself he just waved it off to be fixed another time. 

Because their house was crappy and tiny, she'd had to manouvre past him in the living room to get to her room. Usually she'd spare him just a single glance, noncommittal and disinterested as she could be, and he'd hang upon the hope that she'd keep her mouth shut. But the vibe when she came in the house last night was horribly off; he sensed it the moment her heels had clacked across the threshold, and he sensed the manner of the words that would soon tumble out of her mouth at the sight of him before she even set her sights on him.

He was pretty good at that, sensing emotions. It wasn't like his other _gifts;_ not hereditary in any way, but learned through years of experience. He could be facing the other way and his mother would take a single breath behind him and he'd know what she's probably feeling from the way she breathed that breath alone. 

It's not a very pleasant thing to be good at, and he's not exactly proud of it at all, but she's his mother and if he were to be thankful for anything at all she gave him, it would be this one gift. He'll be grateful just for that and nothing more. 

He was beyond ready to snap already at the second word to leave her mouth, and like the bastard child he was he retaliated with as much ferocity he'd inherited from her. Sometimes he wondered how the neighbours haven't called the police on them already from the racket they always caused; if it was one thing he and his mother did well together, it was to add to the noise pollution in their crappy residence. They were  _fantastic_ at that. But then again, they  _did_ live in a crappy residence; there was always yelling, all the time.

At one point she'd thrown a  _vase_ at his head, their fourth vase, and—ah there it was. The falling point in their latest row. She'd looked at the broken shards on the floor by his feet, wrinkled her nose once in what was probably disgust and a mixture of other emotions, then retreated to her room without another word, leaving him to clean up the mess. 

He didn't clean it up. 

That was the worst to have come. Everything else were little miniscule things that almost seemed petty to him in the grand scheme of things, as if the world just wanted to rile him up and push him over the edge even further. He slaved away at his homework all night because they were all due the following day (procrastination is the _worst),_ and his exhaustion caused him to sleep through his first three alarms. He'd come so close to catching the bus, but he swore the driver took one look at him through the sideview mirror and very purposely swivelled the door shut when he waved his arms like a lunatic at him to wait for him. Then as he doubled over under the bus stop awning, panting his lungs out and cursing the driver and his wife and his kids, he'd realized it had started _snowing,_ what the  _fuck,_ and he realized too late he'd underdressed for the weather. 

He'd been too caught up staring at the cloud of mist that had burst out of his mouth, too stunned at its existence for a few seconds before realization kicked in. When it did it was also the exact same time a car drove way too close to the curb, too close to _him,_ and had shot a spray of melted snow right at his jeans and Converse, soaking through them thoroughly and making the skin of his legs shrivel up and recede back and hide inside his bones. Seriously, what the fuck. 

And—oh oh oh!  _And,_ the fucking cherry to top off this shitfest of the crumbling cake called his life was when the pulse wave came. Ah, fuck, he's not even gonna go there. He'd suffered enough embarrassment already and there's no way he would willingly relive it. Usually he was tolerant to pain; was used to it, in fact, when he had to take all those beatings just to get a third degree black belt in fucking hapkido—he wasn't a sucker to pain, basically. But he'd been reduced to a worm earlier, writhing and wriggling and shaking after he'd collapsed to the pavement, and he'd attracted a fucking crowd. 

That was terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible terrible terrible terribleterribleterribleterrible—

And now he had to sit in this stupid freezing lecture hall in frozen jeans and shoes, in the only unoccupied seat next to the ceiling-to-floor windows that were installed for aesthetic and nothing else and now only amplified the frigidness of the room. Everytime he breathed he looked like a dragon high on weed. His stupid traitorous mind kept replaying his peak moment of shame when he'd been turned into a worm in public and he couldn't stop squirming in embarrassment wondering if anyone in here had seen him like that because that would _suck_ because he had a reputation to maintain. People have begun to shoot weird looks at him, but he only had to return one of his own for them to swivel around as if nothing was wrong. He rolled his eyes, looking away and hunching over in his seat. 

The lecturer's shaking voice was all but background noise to his ears, just a dreadful droning sound that barely registered in his head. Something was amiss today. It was rife in the air, like static, and he was probably really the only one who noticed. The pulling feeling in his gut was pestering him incessantly, but it wasn't as if he could go out searching right now in the middle of class. The pounding in his head was almost headsplitting, and the only reason he could get by was because he'd offed himself to everything around him. Cheat code to dealing with pain; if you're on the verge of screaming in a place you shouldn't you just have to gather the willpower to off all the switches in your brain. The wind shook at the barren trees in the courtyard below with a viciousness he'd never seen before, and up above, snow continued to fall in a light shower of white. The morning sky was darkening, and clouds thick, dense and massive swarmed over the city, spreading as far as his eye could see. And Chanyeol had seemed more skittish and jumpy than usual the split second he'd seen him in the hallway earlier. Something was wrong today. 

But he didn't know what. 

He sighed, wiping away at the frozen snot under his nose before laying his head on folded arms across the desk. Clenched his teeth once; when the pulling in his gut spiked uncomfortably high for a moment, but it receded soon enough and he relaxed. His breath ghosted across the glass of the window, fanning mist over it, and through the haze he'd created on the glass he could see the jagged lines of electricity sparking and snaking down towards the earth, just at the edge of the horizon. Thunder boomed softly from the large distance, but they made his heart stutter every time he heard them. His brain told him it was just science; water particles up in the atmosphere all bumping against each other and creating friction and then creating lightning, more or less. 

His heart told him he should pray very, very hard that that wasn't an omen, and that the runty boy skinnier than _he_ was from two buildings over hadn't received the pulse wave as well, because that would make his already terrible morning into nothing short of hell. 

But if Chanyeol was acting that distressed, then Baekhyun had no hope that Jongdae could've kept it together.

* * *

 October 14th, 11.10 a.m.

* * *

None of his teachers collected the homework. Two of them had completely forgotten that they'd assigned homework in the first place and all his classmates were being assholes and had silently and mutually agreed not to remind them. The third one said out loud how she didn't feel like marking anything today and the whole class had cheered while he'd scowled and quietly promised vengeance, and the last didn't even show up and the substitute had given them a pop quiz that lasted the entirety of class and that he had finished in under ten minutes. 

Baekhyun seethed. 

All that last-minute hard work last night for nothing.  _Nothing._

That kind of raw anger and frustration was almost powerful enough to make him push aside the sharp pain in his head and the pulling in his gut. But in the short time getting acquainted with both of them, Baekhyun wasn't exactly sure what could overpower them. They were just so overwhelming, so _distracting,_ and over the hours they just progressively got worser and worser. They spiked randomly for absolutely no reason at all, and everytime he thought they had finally gone for good they came back again with a vengeance like he'd just spat in their toddler's sippycup. Pfft, what the hell. He's an asshole, but he wasn't that mean. 

Because of the terrible weather, everyone stayed cooped up inside, and the cafeteria ended up more packed than usual. Not that it was unappreciated, because the more bodies there were meant more heat generated, which meant the cafeteria was warmer which then meant his day got slightly more tolerable. The noise he could do without though, because it just added fuel to the fire that was the headache and the pull in his gut. He felt prickly all over.

The line to the food bar was way longer than usual, but he never got food from here anyway (because frankly, it sucked), so there was no reason to get annoyed by that. A random kid hurtled past him as he walked down the aisles, almost knocking him with his elbow, but Baekhyun let that slide. He came across volatile kids everyday, so like what the fuck, you do you kid. For half a second he wondered about the capacity of the room, and he suspected that his lonely table would surely have been taken already by someone else. He hoped not, because he really wanted to rest his ass down on something, but today was terrible and of course he was right to suspect. 

He had to grit his teeth to stem the flow of expletives that were so _ready_  to burst out when he saw the mess they made of his table. It was the little table put in the furthest most secluded corner of the room, the cleanest and the smallest one because only he ever occupied it and he never made a mess, and it offered him as much peace and solidarity he could afford in forty-five minutes because he was an emo, angsty dude who just wanted to brood about his shitty life in peace. It's his table, man, and they're fucking mucking it up. 

Someone spilled his milk carton just as he thought that. Fuck's sake. 

Raucous laughter made him grit his teeth even more, and his withering glare turned out ineffective when they didn't even realize his presence there. He came to a stop a few feet away, and gosh darn it where's he gonna go now? 

He forced himself to sigh, because he read somewhere that sighs were the human equivalent to restarting a computer, and he turned to scan the rest of the cafeteria. The sudden increase in bodies seemed to crowd him now, and the warmth suddenly felt stifling, for some god-awful reason, and it seemed too bright. Who knows why. Not him. 

He needed to get out. 

He took a step to the exit, but then another bout of pealing laughter behind him had him skid to a stop. He cinched his eyes shut, had to hold in a breath to keep himself under control. He was feeling  _so very petty,_ and it was so _childish_ of him to do this, but _fuck_ who the fuck cares. Who's gonna stop him? Who's gonna _care?_ He weighed the options for a while more. 

Fuck. Petty ass bitch it is then. 

He turned his head sharply, only enough to look over his shoulder, and his eyes locked with the blonde girl sitting in the centre. She spotted him, then her eyes appeared all ticked off and her mouth twitched into an irritated frown like he'd very purposely kicked her dog, and—it reminded of his mother. She parted her painted lips, was about to mouth off at him, he saw, though she had no right, because that's his fucking table and he deserved to give them shit, but he only had the capacity to be petty about it. They should feel lucky.

He glared, then took long strides down the aisles to the exit just as the screaming started. The cafeteria quietened down as they turned towards the sight, and as he passed them by he heard gasping and mutterings of horror. For all he knew they might start rumours that he cursed that table. Better for him then, because then at least people will stop taking things away from him. 

_Fuck._

It wasn't that bad. He didn't do them much harm. If they fell prey to them anyway it was only because they were too weak to soldier through it, so that was their own fault. He just blinded them. No big deal. It'll wear off after a few minutes, maybe twenty if they were unlucky enough to get hit with the full force of his trick. But the blonde girl, eh...

Perhaps he'd gone overboard with her. It's her own fault anyways; she shouldn't have made to lash out at him without expecting him to retaliate. It was unwarranted of her, so it was warranted of him to react in such a manner. So he'd made her see her worst fears, whatever it was, he didn't actually know. She brought this on herself. Her screaming was the loudest; a shrill, ear-piercing shriek that got cut-off halfway when he stepped out of the cafeteria. It bounced around in his head along with the new wave of pain—he tuned it all out as best as he could. 

Five minutes later, and he could still hear it. 

What a hideous sound. 

The hallways were empty and disgustingly cold, and he swore he saw thin sheets of frost forming on the metal lockers, but he continued walking through them anyways. He needed to move, needed to get out. Needed to run. The walls seemed like they were closing in on him, and there were dark _shadows_ in the corners, even though he swore he wasn't doing anything right now. They danced all around him, like ballerinas performing a routine. 

Around and around and around they went. Shadowy figures in the darkness. Twirling and spinning and bouncing and crowding. 

He glanced once behind him, then turned down a corner when the pull told him to. The cafeteria seemed miles away to him now.

The shadows followed him, sliding against the walls and across the floors in a silent symphony. This always happened. He was usually most of the time all by himself, that one lonely dude walking through the hallways alone because he couldn't make friends or no one wanted to be friends with him. It was depressing sometimes, being in such solitude all the time, but it was maddening when he couldn't be _alone._ Thoughts chased each other around his head like the sun chased away the dark, and memories of when things used to be bright and happy dragged his shoulders down to a now permanent hunch, and the shadows were always there with him. Always there. Always crowding, always whispering. 

He turned down another corner, and then another, and oftentimes the pull would spike so he'd have to backtrack because that meant he'd lost his way. The shadows trailed him, and sometimes when he glanced down it seemed like his own shadow was dancing with them. The hallways continued darkening, and the frost continued spreading, and outside the wind was rushing by in a loud rush of noise and the lightning continued to crackle far in the distance. The storm had deviated closer to the city.

He turned another corner, and he saw Chanyeol. The shadows disappeared. 

Chanyeol didn't notice him, because he was already half-turned around another bend in the coridor up ahead (this university had _a_   _lot_ of coridors and hallways. Sometimes if he wasn't careful he would get himself lost), but it was unmistakeable to Baekhyun who the person was. At once, the pull spiked. Baekhyun frowned, eyes narrowing. The pull was leading him to Chanyeol? Why? Did Chanyeol cause the pull? Can he even do that?

He shook his head. No, that wasn't possible. Chanyeol's abilities were pretty specific. If the pull really was caused by a person, then it had to be someone else. It can't have been caused by Jongdae too, then. 

But in any case, if the pull wasn't leading him to Chanyeol, then it was just that they were on the same path. To wherever it may be, he supposed he had to walk it with Chanyeol. He closed his eyes, frowning, then gave a short sigh when his mind flashed up a blurry image of his father and his friend. Not even blurry, he realized after a few seconds. They were just dark silhouettes against a stark white background. His dad was nothing more to him than just a silhouette now. Has it been that long?

He walked down the hallway, hearing the soft 'tap-tap-tap' of Chanyeol's shoes further down. Perhaps he could salvage something from this shitty day. Chanyeol was great fun to be around. His reactions were the best, especially when Baekhyun pushed at his limits. He was so funny, really. Hopefully Jongdae wasn't around to ruin things for him.

Chanyeol was sitting on the bottom steps of a stairwell when he found him again. His face was downturned, and he was visibly struggling with opening a bottle of water. Baekhyun cocked an eyebrow in amusement. Then he wondered to himself; usually in winter people would rather drink hot chocolate or something. Something warm. That bottle couldn't possibly be anything other than freezing right now.

Then he recalled—ah right. Chanyeol's deal causes his body to burn and dry out faster than most people's, so he needed to rehydrate himself as frequently as possible. Usually Baekhyun would see him with his very own gigantic water bottle, but he supposed it would've been emptied by this point in time. What with probably trying to keep himself warm—and very possibly Jongdae too, if he decided to set aside his pride in these unfavourable conditions—he'd probably have burned himself out even faster than normal. 

His scoff was what finally attracted Chanyeol's attention. Chanyeol jumped, clutching the still unopened water bottle to his chest, gasping in surprise. To this day, it amused him to no end; how such a giant boy such as he could somehow be frightened of so many things. He'd been like this since he was young; when Baekhyun first met him and made the light in his eyes go out and he'd screamed and cried in terror until Jongdae came and clocked him right in the face. Baekhyun could sometimes re-feel the sharp pain if he wished. 

But he didn't feel like toying around with Chanyeol today. The excitement died down when the pull spiked, and the headache came again, and he couldn't stop the furrowing of his eyebrows. Chanyeol's hand shot up to clutch at his head at the same time Baekhyun felt the pains too, he noticed. 

"So you've got it, too, huh?" He said, stepping forward. Chanyeol went rigid as a statue when he sat down heavily beside him on the bottom step. Baekhyun plucked the water bottle out of his frozen grasp, untwisting it successfully in one try. He pretended not to notice the embarrassed blush as he handed it back. "Something's happening," he continued. "Where's Jongdae? He's involved in this too."

Then he noted how warm Chanyeol was. Such a lovely respite in this blazing cold. Chanyeol's warm wasn't the normal type of warm; the heat of warm-blooded creatures that humans usually were. But Chanyeol was more than just human anyways, and so his heat was a blazing fire, a human furnace, almost to the point of feverish if one didn't know any better. It was impossible for him to be cold, to be anything other than hot, and his sheer size only amplified it. Baekhyun was not as prideful as Jongdae, nor was he as standoffish as people thought him to be. If he wanted to be warm, then he'll be warm. 

So he sidled up real close next to Chanyeol, pressing their shoulders together and manhandling him when his rigidness turned even more rigid. He wrapped a long, lanky arm around his back, pinning the hand to his side under his arm so Chanyeol can't pull away, then cozied up under his arm as best as he could on the stone steps. He was somewhat glad he'd underdressed now, otherwise this wouldn't be as comfortable as it is. 

"You're hot," he said, purposely wording it like that just so he could see Chanyeol sputter and turn red in embarrassment. He knew Chanyeol well—definitely not as well as Jongdae did, of course, but enough to know how he'd react to certain situations. And he was right, because Chanyeol did sputter, his eyes going wide and his face and neck turning as red as the embers of a fire. Baekhyun laughed as Chanyeol turned away from him, his hands twisting around the neck of the water bottle before bringing it up to his mouth. Baekhyun watched him take a sip, and then another one, and then promptly choking on the third. 

He patted the other's back as he hacked his lungs out, his own chortles almost getting lost in the coughing fit that echoed around the stairwell. He shook his head in his amusement, snorting when Chanyeol shied away from his gaze. 

"Time's gone by yet you're still the same Chanyeol I met that day, huh," he said. "Remember? I took the light out of your eyes and you turned into a squabbling baby. You were nine."

"Yeah, and then Jongdae punched you," Chanyeol mumbled. 

"Can still feel it." He smirked. "You've grown so much bigger than me since then yet you're still so..." He trailed off, still smirking, then wound Chanyeol's arm back around him again. "Where's your boyfriend?"

Chanyeol bristled. "He's not my boyfriend," he mumbled. "Upstairs. Talking to Mr. Shin."

"Is he gonna be done soon? Break is almost over; I've got a fuck ton to discuss with the two of you."

"Is it the..." Chanyeol gestured to his head, then his stomach. 

Baekhyun nodded. "Yeah."

"What happened in the cafeteria?" Chanyeol asked. "I heard... screaming."

"Oh, nothing too bad," Baekhyun said, shrugging dismissively. "I didn't hurt anyone, don't worry."

"Wait, what—"

"Do you suppose this is something like a call?" Baekhyun cut him off, pointing to his stomach. Seriously, he did not want to talk about that. "I feel it, you feel it, I'm pretty sure Jongdae feels it too—"

"He does," Chanyeol nodded. 

"—so I'm pretty sure it means something like that. It led me to you, y'know?"

"It—It did?"

"Kinda. Something's happening, Chanyeol."

Chanyeol fidgeted. "Maybe we should ask Jongdae's mom about this. She knows a lot about this stuff—"

"'We'?" Baekhyun echoed. Chanyeol stilled as he contemplated, eyes sliding away to the wall in front of them. "Nah. I'd rather not... I mean, I think I'm better off outside. You two can go ask his mom, or whatever—"

"Ask my mom what?" 

The stinging smell of ozone permeated his nose, and Baekhyun cast his eyes over his and Chanyeol's shoulders at the landing above them. Then they lowered into a half-glower. He knew he was the one who wanted Jongdae to be here, but, still. Ugh, it's _this_ guy. 

Static filled the air, and for a moment he saw miniature lightning crackle around Jongdae's fingers as the other's expression darkened as well. He descended the stairs towards them slowly and menacingly, but Baekhyun still had many memories of scrawny fifteen-year-old Jongdae with his twig-like neck and ridiculous hair and even more ridiculous glasses, so his fear tactics will never work on him. He'd like to offer an insult like he usually does, but today was not a usual day.

"Mind telling me why he's here?" Jongdae asked Chanyeol, completely looking over Baekhyun. The latter scoffed loudly at the obvious disregard for his existence. 

Chanyeol fidgeted slightly, but he raised his eyes to meet Jongdae's own. "It's the..." he gestured to his head and his stomach. "Baekhyun feels it too. Something's happening."

Jongdae cocked his head. "Yeah, I gathered."

"Chanyeol says your mom knows about this stuff," Baekhyun commented.

Jongdae dragged his eyes over to him. He chewed on the inside of his lip, eyes narrowing, before he finally replied. "Sorta. I've never actually asked her anything big, so I don't know."

"Why not?"

Jongdae shrugged. "I don't know."

"Then ask her tonight. Or when you get back. I think—"

"You know she was friends with your dad?" Jongdae asked suddenly. 

Baekhyun turned questioning eyes to him. "...yeah."

"And Chanyeol's?"

"I know that, Kim."

"She's still hurting," Jongdae said simply. Beside him, Chanyeol turned sharply away, fingers squeezing around the neck of the plastic bottle. 

Baekhyun grinded his teeth lightly together, but it was more of him needing to do something to fill the time than it was an action born from annoyance or anything. 

"Do you think I'm not hurting too?" He asked slowly. He tossed his head to the side, sighing as he stood. "Look, whatever happened... that was in the past. She's just gonna have to come to terms with it like the rest of us." Jongdae's eyebrows furrowed sharply at that, but Baekhyun continued without giving him room to cut in. "People die all the time, okay? It's normal."

"I'm just saying I don't think she'll like us bringing up memories of them," Jongdae said. 

"And I don't like the idea of living with this pain for the rest of my life," Baekhyun countered. "Your mom's not gonna like seeing you like this either. Just for one day, she's just gonna have to endure for, what, an hour thinking of back then, because we need answers, alright? You, me, Chanyeol, however many others there are out there. Things like this," he gestured to the three of them, "happening at the same time isn't a coincidence. It has to mean something. And since you're the only one of us with a living relative from that time, you're gonna have to be the one to ask her."

"Right," Jongdae said slowly. "And then what? We get the answers to questions I don't even know how to ask, and then we... go on an adventure? The fuck do you think I am, a hobbit?"

"I mean, sure, you can stay behind if you want," Baekhyun shrugged. "Chanyeol and I can just—"

"Like fuck he's going anywhere with you," Jongdae spat. 

"Fine, then the both of you can live like this until you die. I don't care."

"Asshole, I know you don't care about your mom, but mine actually needs me," Jongdae said.

"I'm not asking you to leave her forever!" Baekhyun exclaimed. "I'm just asking for a little of your help so we can end this."

"What if it can't be ended?" Jongdae questioned hotly. "Then we'll have been wasting time I could've used to take care of my mother. There has to be another option."

"Another option?" Baekhyun echoed. "Like what?"

"One where I'm not leaving my mother behind."

"For fuck's sake, you're not leaving her behind!" Baekhyun exploded. "It's just gonna take a day or so—"

"Oh, trust me, it's not gonna take just a day," Jongdae chuckled snidely. 

"Oh, so you're really gonna accept this as your life then?"

"Do I have a choice—?"

"Chanyeol has a choice, and you're taking it away from him." 

Jongdae froze, jaw clenching as he pierced him with a stormy gaze. Baekhyun glared back just as stubbornly. The stairwell slowly descended into darkness, only illuminated sporadically by the flashes of electricity in Jongdae's hands. 

Chanyeol's gulp was audible in the silence. "Jongdae," he called hesitantly. 

Jongdae shifted his eyes onto him, suddenly losing all his animosity and rage. 

"I'm going with Baekhyun."

Baekhyun couldn't suppress the small victorious smirk even if he tried. 

Jongdae pressed his lips into a thin line. "But it'll be dangerous..."

"Oh, come on, Kim, he's not a baby—" Baekhyun started to say. 

"I know, hyung... but I'm dangerous myself, so what does it matter?" Chanyeol shrugged slightly. "I'd rather find a solution to... this rather than wait it out. I think it'll be good for all of us."

Jongdae just scrunched up his face, teetering on the line of indecision. He still seemed adverse to the idea of... leaving. 

"Hyung, you don't actually want to live your life in pain, do you?"

"Why not?" Came Jongdae's soft reply. 

"Let's just have Chanyeol make the decisions for the both of you next time, yeah? He seems like the more logical and sensible of you two." Baekhyun flashed Chanyeol a smile, but it wasn't exactly friendly. "Should've saved all this time and asked you instead, fuck."

Because really, where Chanyeol goes, Jongdae was never far behind. And vice versa. Baekhyun knew Jongdae saw the good in going out, but he also understood the pain he felt at having to leave his parent behind. Baekhyun felt that once, so he wasn't going to begrudge him for that. Add to the fact that this was also Jongdae's only remaining parent left, and his only family. He was just a little miffed at all the energy he wasted, honestly. 

"And what about you?" Jongdae asked tersely. "While I risk electrocution asking half-cocked questions to my half-sane mother, what are you gonna do?"

Baekhyun paused to think. What was he gonna do? He looked down at Chanyeol, with his head half-raised from the ground and staring at him and Jongdae at their hands and legs rather than their faces. 

"I'm..." he started. "I'm finding answers of my own."

"Oh, so you aren't even gonna be there? This was your idea?"

"I really don't think I'll be any good in your house," Baekhyun said, because really, he didn't. He'd had enough of half-sane mothers as it is already. "I'll just be outside finding out other stuff. Maybe I'll even try to search for the others. Where there's fire," he pointed to Chanyeol, "there's water, and earth and wind. So while you go information-gathering, I'll be doing this."

"And then what? Are we meeting up somewhere?" 

The bell rang just as Baekhyun was about to answer, preventing him from answering. He looked up, surprised at how fast time had gone by. Didn't he just sit beside Chanyeol five minutes ago?

He stayed silent as he let it pass fully—a full thirty seconds—before speaking again. He'd really like to just stay here and work this all out before going back to his normal life again, but his next class has an asshole for a lecturer, and if he came to class even a second after him Baekhyun would literally have his ass set on fire. Especially since he's Baekhyun. Terrible days and terrible things were attracted to him, after all.

"Yeah. But I suppose we'll have to discuss all the nitty-gritty bits after class. Do y'all have Shin-seonsaengnim as a teacher? He's as batshit as my mother." He drew himself back, walking away from them without waiting for a reply.

But just as he turned the bend of the stairwell, he stopped, because he saw out of the corner of his eye how Jongdae had knelt down to Chanyeol, putting an arm around his shoulders. Their faces were pressed close, and they were whispering to each other in voices too low for him to even hear. His heart twinged. 

The shadows sprung up around him again, as if just waiting for his departure, but he didn't notice them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this was okay?? Ive always found it hard trying to write in baek's pov idk why


	7. a strom approaches

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes im so sorry

* * *

14 October, 01.11 p.m.

* * *

 

He shoved all thoughts of Baekhyun, lightning, fire and bloodlines out of his head for the rest of the day. The pain in his head and stomach were _great_ help, because they proved to be good enough motivation for him to do nothing else but curse up a storm under his breath with every spasm and every wave that came. Keeping it cool in class became a lot more hard work than it usually was, and making sure he didn't start an electrical fire somewhere wherever he may be was a lot more taxing than it had ever proved to be. Chanyeol offered good distraction too, but that had become so routine in his life it was almost easy to ignore him.

However, as much of him trying to forget about Baekhyun ever existing, it all proved futile when said person stepped up beside them when they left campus grounds anyway. More like, he stepped up to Chanyeol's other side, and Jongdae had to admit that was a smart move, otherwise for sure, without a single doubt, and without a second wasted, he'd have electrocuted him on sight. 

"Right, so here's the plan," Baekhyun started. He was shivering slightly in his underdressed state, and his uncovered head was slowly being blanketed by a thin sheet of snow. "I'll give you the condensed version of it, 'cause I know for sure neither of you will remember everything I say—"

Jongdae barely could resist hissing at him. 

"—but _basically_ all you two have to do is to just ask Mrs. Kim questions about _anything_ and _everything._ The others, our powers, why this could possibly be happening and what it might all entail. Ask her why she came to Earth, because I think by now y'all would at least suspect like I do that one half of our parents are _not_ from here."

"Suspected," Chanyeol agreed, face reddening slightly. "Never really liked to think about it."

"Well, suck it up," Baekhyun said. He shook the snow off his head. "We'll meet up at the McDonald's near your house, y'all know which one right? Midnight, sharp. If you're late, I'll come looking for you."

And then he was off. More like he winked out of sight, in the middle of the street, like a shadow introduced to light. Chanyeol gasped at that, but Jongdae had a bit more reservation to not show any reaction. He'd seen it before, anyways, that one time he was aiming a Chidori-styled lightning bolt to Baekhyun's very punchable face but had ended up charring the wall behind him instead. He looked around the otherwise empty street, wondering if anyone saw anyways. 

The pull spiked suddenly and viciously at the other boy's disappearance, and he reached a hand out to steady Chanyeol as the younger laid a hand on his stomach, stumbling slightly on his feet.

The walk home was silent, which was unusual for the two of them. Ordinarily they'd delve into another round of shit-talk—they'd shit-talk their classmates, shit-talk their teachers, and then if they have the time they'd shit-talk Baekhyun.

 ..Okay, _he'd_ shit-talk Baekhyun and Chanyeol would smile nervously to let him know he fully agreed with whatever Jongdae said, but Jongdae would always know he was lying through his teeth because Chanyeol absolutely _adored_ Baekhyun. For whatever fucking reason, Jongdae wasn't sure, but it is what it is and Jongdae didn't care enough because Chanyeol was old enough to take care of himself. Despite whatever has been displayed. Oh well.

As it was, it was neither of their faults, he supposed; today _had_  been a very unusual day. Jongdae's mind was busy churning up strategies on how to approach this topic with his mother; he remembered the last few times he'd broached similar subjects. His mother was a live wire, almost literally and figuratively, and any wrong word or ill-chosen move would very highly likely make her snap. Not that she chose to snap; Jongdae knew his mom. She just wasn't... completely herself anymore. Was that right enough to say? She wasn't well, to put it simply. Not anymore. She's got health issues on top of mental issues, and then emotional issues because the guy she gave her heart to decided to wink out of existence on a whim. It was a lot to take in; made one question themselves. It made Jongdae question himself, because he was there when it happened. This whole thing Baekhyun set them to do might very well not even work. 

The scars on the underside of his left arm twinged painfully at a memory, but he bit his tongue and pushed it aside. 

The storm closing in on the city was probably his mother's doing too. Probably. He'd never seen her do any of those things before, any grand-scale things other than accidentally zapping her son out of annoyance when he ticked her off, so he wasn't actually very sure with the assumption. It was a massive storm, it seemed like, and it made afternoon look like night. Jongdae wondered how that would play out. It had been snowing all day long, and he didn't know if lightning can occur during a snowstorm. 

He pulled out his phone to do a quick Google search, and found out that, in fact, yes they still can. It's called thundersnow, and the word put images in his head that made him groan silently with dread.

Not like he wasn't filled with dread every day of his life. It was kinda like a package deal, see, when someone's born with what he has. When he is the only one of him, and when his brother is the only one like him too. Caution and wariness has become a default setting for him, though it shouldn't have to be. Many things shouldn't be, and yet they are anyways. 

He remembered a night, many years ago. He'd just received the news of his father leaving—that he'd  _already left—and_ he remembered the night plunged into an immitigable storm. The lightning had been full of wrath and the thunder deafened everyone's ears and his house had laid in the eye of it.

The front door was already unlocked when he tried unlocking it with his key, which made Jongdae frown. His mom had been up and about, evidently, even though she shouldn't. Many times he told her he'd be her legs and get her whatever she wanted, but many times she chose to ignore that statement. She was a strong independant woman who don't need no man, she said (half true), and she can do whatever she wants to whenever she wants to (... debatable).

She was half-asleep on the sofa, the TV on the opposite wall softly playing a drama Jongdae was unfamiliar with. The ceiling fan was whirring at its lowest setting, and his mom had donned on one of their thick padded jackets, zipped up to the top. The curtains were drawn, so the house was enclosed in shadow, and in the flickering light of the television his mother looked absolutely ghostly. Jongdae was used to the sight. His mother was old, but lately she seemed to look even older than she actually was.

She had eaten a late lunch it seemed; there was an empty plate on the table in front of her, oily chopsticks tossed carelessly to the side. Due to habit, Jongdae immediately set to planning dinner; going through whatever's in their kitchen in his head and then mentally eyeballing how much of each ingredient was going to be left and how long he could maximise them for, because he actually didn't like grocery shopping all that much.

But then he recalled Baekhyun's words, and the plan he'd set them on, and very briefly (because it was such a sad thought he didn't want to dwell on it for longer than he had to) wondered if he was ever going to be able to cook his mother dinner ever again. 

"Hi, mom," he said as he approached her, stooping to kiss her cheek. She reacted blearily; jolting slightly as if she hadn't even noticed the two boys entering the house (holy shit, mom, what if a burglar comes in), and then blinking unfocused eyes up at him. When she finally looked at him, she smiled brightly.

"Hello, dear." She looked past him. "Hello, Chanyeol. Did you just come back?"

Jongdae nodded, dropping his bag onto the floor by the end of the couch before plopping down to sit beside her.

"Yeah, we did. Did you go out?"

"Just to the store. I wanted ramen."

"I could've cooked ramen for you in the morning," Jongdae said, frowning. Chanyeol settled on the floor by his feet. "Or something way healthier than this, anyways."

"Oh, I know, but I just didn't want to trouble you," she replied offhandedly, reaching out to bury her fingers in Chanyeol's curly hair. Jongdae supposed the gesture was meant to be affectionate, but she seemed so out of it and too sick for either of them to see her that way. 

"I'm your son, you're supposed to trouble me all you want," Jongdae said in rebuttal. "Besides, it's not like there wasn't enough time."

"Well, I didn't feel like eating ramen in the morning," his mother chuckled. "I'll let you cook dinner all by yourself if you want." Jongdae huffed a breath through his nose. 

"How was school today, dears?" She asked, looking at Chanyeol too. 

"School was..." Jongdae started, glancing at his friend for assistance.

"It was eh," Chanyeol finished for him.  Jongdae nodded.

"It was eh. Today was a bit... weird."

"Weird? What do you mean?" She cocked her head to the side. "Did something happen?"

Shit, they'd broached the subject. They'd broached it, oh no. He wasn't prepared for this, holy fuck. He shared a quick look with Chanyeol before turning to his mother again. 

"Yes... actually." His mother's eyes cleared totally, and from this short a distance he could see an almost invisible crease appearing in between her eyebrows. Something about her face told him she didn't really want to hear what happened. But, oh well... they'd broached the subject. He braced himself for an accidental electrocution. 

He started slowly, "This morning, Chanyeol and I, we both..." what the hell, this sounded so damn stupid out loud. "We both got a pain in our heads and in our guts. Like, a headache, but a million times worse, and then it feels like we're being pulled somewhere. It still feels like that now; it's a constant thing. The headache, not so much. We're being..."

He trailed off, then shook his head. "It's—I was just wondering if, since both Chanyeol and I experienced it, if it has something to do with our..." 

He lets the sentence hang, but they all got the gist of it. 

"Not just us," Chanyeol said too. "Baekhyun got it too."

"Baekhyun?" Jongdae's mother blinked. "... Byun Baekhyun?"

"Yes, that one," Jongdae nodded quickly. "Okay, three of us got it, I forgot about him." 

"... At the same time?" She asked. 

"Yeah." Probably? He didn't know about Baekhyun, but he and Chanyeol had almost keeled over on the sidewalk at the exact same time, so he'd have to just assume it was the same for Baekhyun too. 

His mother stayed silent, turning her head so she can look at the drawn curtains. There was a strange expression on her face. 

"The storm..." she murmured, frowning imperceptibly. Jongdae didn't press. 

"We don't know anything about what's happening to us, but you might," he said instead. "That's why..." He swallowed nervously. He  _hated_ seeing his mother sad. "Mom," he called, and the unexpected force behind the word caused her head to swivel around sharply on her too thin neck. "You can't keep running away forever. Please. You have to tell us." She stared at him for a second too long.

"Tell you what, darling?" She asked, trying too hard to play at innocence.

He sighed heavily.

 _"Mom,"_ he stressed. He turned his hands over, facing up on his lap. Lightning crackled around in his palms. "Normal people can't do this. Normal people can't draw up flames," he gestured to Chanyeol on the floor by his feet, "can't glow like a lightbulb. At least... not people from this place. I know you know what I mean, and we need you to tell us all that you know. I know you ran away from... something, you and your two friends." She drew in a sharp breath at the mention, but he had to continue. "Whatever you're running away from may be coming for us now. Your son. They're coming after your son. You need to do something."

She narrowed her eyes, and he braced himself. But she turned away sharply, her hair swishing about her neck. She stared at the curtains again. 

"Do something," she said in an understated hiss, lips pressed into a thin line. _"Do something._ What can I do—they all _died._ Everyone died and there was no _chance,_ and what; do they think children can solve the problem now? What can you do; you're too young and you know nothing."

"Exactly, right?" he said. "What can we do? Nothing. At least not for now. But if you tell us something, we might be able to."

She glared at him, but he refused to step back. He did, however, look away from her eyes. 

"Mom, you know as well as we do that there's no stopping this, whatever this is. It's happening right now and it won't stop until we stop it," he said. "Something's calling us, and we have to go. But we don't know what we're going up against, so we need you to explain to us."

"There's nothing to explain to you," she said angrily. "Everything that happened is in the past—"

"Then move on," he cut in, indignant. "If you say that everything's in the past, then why are you still sad that they're—"

"They were all that I had!" She burst. Her eyes glowed for a split second, and then consecutively, all the power went out. The TV faded to black, and the ceiling fan above them slowly whirled to a stop. "They promised they wouldn't leave me, but they did! I have  _nothing_ left."

It felt like he'd been punched in the gut. "Am I not... something to you?"

His mother gasped, face twisting in her distress. "Jongdae, of _course_ you are. But all I meant was that—"

"Yeah, well, if you don't do something right now then you really  _will_  have nothing left," he said in a rush. "Mom, I don't wanna die too. But if you don't help me to do something, then I really, really, really might."

Her shoulders sagged, and she let out a broken sound. "How can I send you there? That place is  _no more,_ Jongdae—"

"Evidently not, because," he gestured to his head and his stomach. _"Something's happening,_ mom. I don't wanna go there too, believe me, but I don't think anyone really has a choice here. So please, just tell me all you know, so we can go back to normal again. So I can take care of you again."

His mother shook her head. "Honey, there's no going back to normal after this. That man; that—" she drew in a sharp breath, and her eyes  _flashed._ "I'll be sending you off to _die."_

"You... you don't know that," Jongdae said. "I'm gonna come back. I have hope."

"What a dwindling hope it is!" She cried. "I've seen that man, I've seen what he can do. The only reason I survived—the only reason  _we_ survived was because we were thrown off the planet altogether."

"And why do you suppose... that is?" Chanyeol said suddenly.

Jongdae turned to face him, and he saw dawning realization on the taller's face.

"Ma, I don't know what it's like over there, but if you were evacuated from the planet, and then here all of you had us—Jongdae, me, Baekhyun—I mean, that has to mean something, right? Our very existence... has to mean something, in this grand scheme."

Jongdae understood; "Mom, sooner or later we'd have to go eventually. Eventually we'd find out what we were supposed to know anyways. It's... it's all set in motion already."

She looked devastated. 

"We'd just... prefer to hear it from you," Chanyeol said quietly.

His mother looked at Jongdae, to Chanyeol, then back again. There was that look in her eye that told Jongdae of how she was losing that internal battle. She thought long and hard what to say. 

And in the end, she told.     

 

 

"There were twelve of us," she started. "We left as twelve, and we separated upon touching this land. Our home is _—was_ Ivindor, the second of the Six Great Nations of the planet Rausk 'ath Madin. It was—we..." she kept stumbling over her words, but Jongdae and Chanyeol stayed silent and patient.

"The thing we have inside us, what makes us capable of feats like striking lightning from our fingertips and drawing flames is this something called darra. It is the energy source of our powers, rooted deep inside our very being; the well we draw upon to be able to do the things that we can. In the start, the people of Ivindor were much like the people on this Earth—powerless, weak, fallible. But Rausk 'ath Madin is a special place. There is _magic_ in the lands. Our neighbouring kingdom, Aedlin; _that's_ where we got our power from. Aedlin was magical. A prince from that land crossed the borders searching for land of his own to rule. Once he's established his dominion, and chased away the monsters that had used to run rampant in the land, he then sought to form the military, the kingdom's stronghold should hard times fall upon us. Them. From those many soldiers was where he picked his leaders. He gave them parts of his darra, and from those soldiers grew clans and lineages that stretched far and wide over the course of history, weilding the powers that have been blessed upon them. We are called, very simply, the Circle."

"What other powers are there besides the three of us?" Chanyeol asked, raising his hand as if he were in class. 

"Lord Thrivelon had  _many,_ but he gave only one to each of the leaders," Jongdae's mother answered. "Besides the four main elemental ones, there were also powers that dwelled in the mind and the body, such as shape-shifting."

"Cool."

His mother gave a small tweak of a smile.  "Lord Amlath of the Tyrr lineage was the founder of the Circle. Before that, he was the general of Lord Thrivelon's army. Lord Amlath weilds the power of the earth, and everything under it. His children are big people—have to be, because of the sheer power they hold in their hands. I can only imagine the size of your brother when you meet him. For me; I am from the Wyandri lineage, we who draw power from the skies. My birthname is Yvoryn. Chanyeol, you are from the House of Ymbyr, children of fire, and the other boy, Baekhyun was it? He is from the House of Lyandin, those who hold the stars. Wyandr's and Lyandin's line are sister lineages, because our founders are siblings."

Jongdae shot a disgruntled look at Chanyeol. What the hell.

"That explains why I was so close to your friend Baekhyun's father. And Elyon, he was Minolus' other best friend too. We were the closest of the twelve children to have escaped Madin." 

She took a giant pause to gather her thoughts again, having spiralled out at the thought of her friends. 

"There was a war. Way back, long before I was born. The High King of my time, Lord Vindemire had banished his son sixty years prior, and in retaliation he'd waged war upon his homeland. He brought with him the monsters of the land he'd been banished to, the same monsters that Lord Thrivelon had chased away, but in such short time he could not tame them fully, and in the full force of the Circle he really had no chance of winning. It had devastated the land anyhow, and even in my early years I remember seeing remnants of the aftermath, faded as they were. And then, when I was nine..." she glanced to the side, then down to her hands on her lap.

"I suppose the people have gone lax. It must be, had to be the only plausible reason why. Lord Vindemire finally retired from his seat after two and a half centuries of ruling, and his eldest soon then took up the throne. Shortly after that, we were attacked once more. The attack was unexpected, which was why so many Circle members were taken by surprise. Must be. They all died. The attacks started in the west, but word only reached the High Castle when it was too late. That was where I lived. With my friends. Lady Kinnara rushed the twelve of us to Castle Morovik in the south-west. It was so close, _too close_ to the evil. We just barely glanced across them heading for the capital. We were able to see all the armies, and the monsters, and the Exiled himself, and I still have nightmares from that split second alone. He's  _horrible,_ Jongdae. We knew full well at that point; Ivindor is lost."

"What was he banished for?" Jongdae asked. "Is he the one... causing all this right now?"

"I'm not sure about the answer for both those questions," his mother replied. "His banishment wasn't made clear to me or my friends, but that's probably because we were still so young, so there wasn't any good reason for us to know yet. I don't remember even thinking to ask about him; I was so busy focused on my training and playing around with my friends that I just didn't think about the banished prince. We were kids. He just came that day and I heard some of the elders calling him the Treasoner, the Disloyal, the Unfaithful. So, if my reasoning is right, he was probably planning on usurping the throne, but got caught before he managed to." 

"And then he managed to anyway, sixty years later," Chanyeol said. 

Yvoryn shrugged. "I guess. I'm not sure if he's the one personally causing your... pains. Honestly I'm not sure if he can do that, because his powers don't lie in those domains."

"Powers?" Jongdae repeated, and his brow scrunched together in distress. "He had more than one power?"

"Yeah," she nodded. "As descendants of Lord Thrivelon himself, who I said before had _many_  powers, the members of the royal line were bound to inherit them too. Lord Dar'oth's lied specifically in lightning and fire, actually, or so I've been told very briefly. He may have a secondary set, but I'm not too sure about that."

"So... so he's very powerful?" Jongdae said in what was more of a question than a statement. 

His mother nodded solemnly. "The true depth of his power is unknown, and I have to assume it remains so to this day. What's more, he's probably expecting you all. After taking over control of the High Castle, he should have noticed Lady Kinnara's absence, being his sister and all. It wouldn't take _me_ that much effort to piece the puzzle together—that some of the kids have been evacuated. He's probably getting stronger everyday, waiting for your arrival.

"And  _even more,_ he has his own army. Like I said before; monsters from behind the Wall. Warzuk, Dinhall, nerhals and enmais. So many monsters between you and him—do you see why I _can't let you go!?"_  

And just like that, she's burst out crying. She cried for a very long time, with her face buried in her hands, and her shoulders heaving and her body bowing, and Jongdae and Chanyeol were at a loss as to what to do. Jongdae couldn't console her—as much as he wanted to, there was nothing for him to say. Nothing right for him to say. So he stayed quiet, and as he did he broke along with her. 

Eventually, her sobbing and crying quieted down to mute sniffles and shakes. She rubbed at her face viciously, and Jongdae looked away so he couldn't see the red on her cheeks. Too painful. 

"It's too burdensome," she hiccuped, "Too burdensome for children like you. I knew he'd have to be stopped one day, but I'd hoped it didn't have to be you. My son. My only son."

What could he say to that? He needed to appease his mother, but in doing so, that may mean an entire country—alien or not—would be lost to ruin. Possibly even the whole planet. But in going to save his mother's homeland, it would mean putting her at great risk of even more stress and an even higher risk of her health declining, even more of her worrying about him. That was the last thing he ever wanted to do. He didn't want to upset his mother. But he also couldn't let her homeland go to waste. 

That could have been  _his_ home, he realized.  _His_ home, had it not been for the usurper. Sure, he'd probably have had a different name, and a different father, but he was still his mother's son. That could have been their home. 

There was nothing else for him to say except, "I'm sorry."

"There's nothing for you to be sorry for," she said, gentle as a mother could be. "This isn't your fault. Not your fault at all." She took a deep, shuddering breath and held it in, before breathing it slowly back out. 

"How would one go back to that place?" Chanyeol asked, voice tentative. "How far away is that planet?"

"Who knows how far away Madin is. I know I don't," his mother shrugged. "We came here by use of a teleportation device. Our constructs of magic are called artefacts, and this specific one is the Stone of Amlath. On Earth's side it opens up in a cave on the Kolyma Mountains of Russia, somewhere on the peak."

"Why is it the Stone of Amlath if Amlath's power is earth?" Chanyeol asked. 

"Well, it's literally a stone, Chanyeol," Yvoryn answered. "Of course, just Lord Amlath's powers wouldn't be enough. In the core of every artefact is a well holding a mixture of darra from two or more of the leaders. The Stone holds the darra of Lord Amlath and Lord Fayre. Lord Amlath provides the destination between two worlds while Lord Fayre provides the linkway between them. Always there will need to be teamwork to achieve something great as great as creating an artefact."

"Can you tell us more?" Jongdae asked. "I'm sorry about making you have to remember all of that, but... we just need to know more."

His mother spouted a pensive, contemplative look. "I'm not sure how much I can tell you, honestly, considering I left Madin at the age of nine. Children have very limited memory, I hope you realize."

"Well, what do you think this is?" He gestured to his head. "Do you think this is caused by one of us? It's _pulling_ us somewhere."

"Could be," she shrugged, nodding. "If I have to guess, it's probably Sytrei's kid. She's a child of Rhith, who holds power over the mind. Something probably triggered the poor child."

"Okay, so since we're being made to gather," Chanyeol said, "where do your friends live? Do they live close by? We can collect Baekhyun and go meet them after this."

"I... " Yvoryn frowned. "Some of them do. Not including me, seven—... five of my friends live in Korea, but I have no idea where exactly they are. Three of them stayed behind in China. One lifted off and flew to the other side of the world."

"Oh, well, shit," Jongdae heard Chanyeol curse under his breath. 

"But hold on, please repeat what you just said," his mother said. "You're going to leave... tonight?"

"We'll have to leave _eventually,_ mom," Jongdae answered. "And the sooner we go, the sooner we come back, right? The sooner I come back. Better to just go and get this over and done with rather than just wait around and second-guess myself."

She didn't say anything in response, just pursing her lips shut and looking away as she settled back against the couch. 

"It's going to be a difficult journey," she said after a while. Jongdae nodded.

"We know."

"You should know that you're going to get hurt. Every day."

"We know that too," Chanyeol added. 

"I won't be there to clean up your wounds." Jongdae smiled sadly.

"I know. But we'll have each other. We'll be fine." "We'll come home, ma," Chanyeol said. "Don't worry. It's like in all those movies. The good guys always live. The good guys always go home." 

Yvoryn nodded slowly. "Yes... I suppose you're right," she said. "So long as you have each other. You'll look out for one another, won't you?"

"We always have, mom," Jongdae said. 

"And your brothers, you need to look after them too, okay?" She urged.

She leaned forward. "Chanyeol, you are a child of Elwith Ymbyr. You are heir to his seat. As his successor, I ask if will you use your powers not to harm and destroy, but to protect and keep alight the hope in everyone's heart?"

Jongdae watched his friend freeze, and though he hadn't been there that day, he can imagine what was going through his mind at the current moment. Chanyeol had turned pale, but he nodded all the same. 

Yvoryn turned to him then. "My son, you are the heir of the Wyandri lineage. Wyandri has been hailed as the watchman of the Circle, because his domain lies above the clouds, and so his eyes sees far and wide. As his descendant, will you use those same eyes to watch over the people around you, under your care?"

"Yes. Yes, of course, mom."

"As _my_ offspring, will you keep your bloodline close to your heart, in the hopes that one day, we can be restored? That our bloodline, and our system, and our people will be revived and come alive like before?" 

"Yes."

"Promise me that, Jongdae."

He nodded his head nervously. "I promise."

Yvoryn took in a deep breath. "Then... I have no reason to hold you back anymore. This is your fate, and I've blinded myself from it for far too long. I can't prevent you from this. No one can.

"I'm sorry that it is you who have to go through this. I should know how hard a feat this would be, because I've witnessed even if just a fraction of it. But," she swallowed fearfully, "Jongdae, Chanyeol... you two, and your brothers... you are the key to my kingdom's freedom."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes im so sorry part 2


End file.
